[Q] You mentioned earlier that you felt that George Snell particularly deserved his Nobel Prize and you said you might elaborate on it. I wonder, would you care to do so?

I believe that he did because I consider him a scientist the way a scientist should be. First he went after an interesting question not thinking about getting a prize.  I know scientists and you know scientists as well who investigated a particular problem with the idea to get a Nobel Prize. They put every effort only to this goal to get a Nobel Prize. I think that's absolutely the wrong... the worst way to do science, and Snell was just the opposite. I also know that whenever I go to a meeting and somebody comes to talk... let's talk and we sit down to a table and we start discussing something and then almost immediately the guy says, 'Oh let me tell you what we are doing' and then the rest of the, supposed to be, discussion or exchange of ideas tends to be an advertisement of what he is doing. He finishes and he leaves. I think that's also absolutely the wrong way of doing science. Snell again was just the opposite. We could sit down and we could talk endlessly about various problems that concerned us both and third that comes immediately to mind... to my mind is Snell was a person who pursued a project which he believed was, as I said before, interesting regardless of what award would be coming or not coming or whether it would be recognised or not recognised. That's my ideal of a scientist and I applaud the Nobel Committee that it didn't... that it recognises this fact, that he contributed a lot, although he did not advertise himself, although he did not lobby, which is not always the case. Many cases I know scientists actively lobby for being nominated for the Nobel Prize and visit often Stockholm to influence the Nobel Prize Committee. Snell would never think of doing something like that and yet he got the Nobel Prize. It's wonderful that he got. Incidentally I was the one who nominated him also.