Ivar Giæver

1929–2025 · Norwegian-American physicist

Topics: learning, simplicity

• To me the greatest moment in an experiment is always just before I learn whether the particular idea is a good or a bad one. Thus even a failure is exciting, and most of my ideas have of course been wrong. But this time it worked!

  — Ivar Giæver

• If I have learned anything as a scientist it is that one should not make things complicated when a simple explanation will do.

  — Ivar Giæver

• If you want to do good research, it's important not to know too much.

  — Ivar Giæver