People who have it too easy in early life have a disadvantage for later on, because they get to thinking that everything is going to be easy. Mildred Dresselhaus Read Quote
Energy is one topic on which different countries can work together collaboratively. If we can all produce energy from an element that’s available in abundance on our planet, that would be a good thing, but we have to learn how to produce energy in large quantities, cheaply, efficiently and without detriment to the environment. Mildred Dresselhaus Read Quote
Mentoring is about listening to people, helping them go over what the issues are and how to clarify ways to deal with any problems that may arise. Mildred Dresselhaus Read Quote
My older brother was a musical prodigy, and he got a scholarship to the Bronx House Music School. We moved to the Bronx when I was 4 to be close to his music school. Then I got a music scholarship myself, at the age of 6, but that was for a school down in Greenwich Village. I had to take the elevated train and then the subway to get there. Mildred Dresselhaus Read Quote
Hunter High School was a real turning point for me. I found out about its existence through the music school. Nobody I knew had gone to one of these special high schools, and my teachers didn’t think it was possible to get in. But Hunter sent me a practice exam, and I studied what I needed to know to pass the exam. Mildred Dresselhaus Read Quote
Superconductivity helped broaden my professional phase space. When I started my work, it was already known that magnetic fields could quench superconductivity. I found that the transition was not continuous, that superconductivity was initially enhanced in the presence of magnetic fields, then it would suddenly fall off. Mildred Dresselhaus Read Quote
When I came to M.I.T. in 1960, only 4 percent of the students were female. Today, it’s about 40 percent of undergraduates. At Lincoln Lab, they had 1,000 men and two women. But we had a very good boss, and he treated us just like everybody else. Mildred Dresselhaus Read Quote
Electrons are the carriers for electricity, but they are also carriers for thermal energy. This means thermal conductivity is increased when the carrier density is increased. Mildred Dresselhaus Read Quote
The concept of graphene came along in 1947, but nobody paid much attention to it. I was fascinated because it had a linear E versus K while everything else that people were working on at that time had a quadratic dispersion relationship. I wondered why this was and what was so special about it. That was my fascination. Mildred Dresselhaus Read Quote
