Transcript for Jim Heath Interview: How do you know when you have come across a really important finding?

It depends on what you mean by important. If it gets you really excited,

then it could be pretty important.

I think generally if you are working in very fundamental science...

...and you’ve learned something that really changes the way...

...this piece of fundamental science is viewed –

– like C60, we found that carbon actually could be round, another form of carbon.

Work I talked about here: thermoelectrics. We found that the...

...theoretical limit of thermal conductivity in silicon could be beat,

you could actually get a thermal conductivity lower.

So something at the very fundamental, where you really change a precept,

that’s the number one thing telling you when you’ve discovered something interesting.

The second thing is when people start arguing with you about it...

...because if you do something interesting, people are going to care.

And science has this great characteristic that it’s self-cleansing,

that over time, if it is interesting, other people will jump on it, they’ll validate it and verify it.

And often as you find something interesting that may actually be an artifact,

that will be figured out as well.