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The spending in science and technology need to be to increased.

Science shouldn't be just for scientists, and there are encouraging signs that it is becoming more pervasive in culture and the media.

The idea that science is just some luxury that you'll get around to if you can afford it is regressive to any future a country might dream for itself.

Innovations in science and technology are the engines of the 21st-century economy; if you care about the wealth and health of your nation tomorrow, then you'd better rethink how you allocate taxes to fund science. The federal budget needs to recognize this.

If I could snap my fingers and do one thing in science, I would get more funding for basic science. But the level of funding that needs to be done is not on the order of millions, like the cost of the Breakthrough Prizes. It's billions to tens of billions.

So now, if we don't fund the physical sciences, where will the Next Big Thing come from?

We really think it is a good thing for scientists to spend a little bit of their time either in the community or in schools or helping to train high school teachers.

Science is definitely part of America's infrastructure, the engine of prosperity. And yet science is given almost no visibility in the media.

I think top scientists need to be compensated at a different scale in society. Somebody with experience will tell you that true scientists are not motivated by money - they are motivated by the quest itself. That is true. But I think an additional recognition will not hurt.

I believe that science is the engine of prosperity, that if you look around at the wealth of civilization today, it's the wealth that comes from science.