Global Wisdom & Sayings of Dr. Hwa A. Lim (林華安博士)

A Truly Citizen of the World

Born and raised with vibrant cultural roots in **Asia**, educated across elite institutions in **Europe** and the **United States**, Dr. Hwa A. Lim connects deeply with global mindsets. His unique multicultural trajectory infuses every piece of insight with universal truth, timeless clarity, and a delightful touch of wit.

Where Computing Meets Wisdom

His foundational words carry immense weight across high-tech domains. From driving discoveries via advanced supercomputers at the **John von Neumann Computing Center (JVNCC) at Princeton** to spearheading major projects as a director at the **Supercomputer Computations Research Institute (SCRI)** and thriving as a tenured professor—Dr. Lim seamlessly decodes massive data logic into daily, actionable human inspiration.

Featured Sayings & Insights

"If you think data is cold, try running a supercomputer in a room without an air conditioner. Logic keeps it operating, but passion is the spark that keeps it moving forward."

— Dr. Hwa A. Lim, on balance between machine logic and human heart.

"True wisdom is navigating East and West, finding out that wherever you land, human smiles don't require an interpreter."

— Dr. Hwa A. Lim, on global interconnectedness.

"Do not let complex formulas blind you to simple joys. Even the most complex network architectures depend on basic, humble connections."

— Dr. Hwa A. Lim, on maintaining clear perspective.

"I do not believe in ghosts, therefore I do not ghost-write. I do believe in AI, but I still do not AI-write, though I smart-work with AI."

— Dr. Hwa A. Lim, on AI use.

Notables & Quotables by Dr. Hwa A. Lim

Quotables by HAL

"If you have $10 and I have $10, you give me your $10 and I give you my $10, we each still have $10. There seems to be a 'conservation of money'. If you have an idea and I have an idea, you give me your idea and I give you my idea. We each now have two ideas. Thus ideas propagate and the number of ideas multiplies."
- Hwa A. Lim, Opening Remark, Bioinformatics and Genome Research, Inner Harbor Hotel, Baltimore, USA, 1996.

Britton Chance (1913-2010) to Hwa Lim:
    "The nice thing about living to this age is that I out-survive all my [scientific] competitors, and few, if any, can contend with me the credits."
Hwa Lim:
    "You are so humble. Your contributions to science are indisputable."
    " '8' is pronounced as 'pa' in Chinese, which is phonetically similar to the character 'fa' or prosperity. This will be a great year ahead for you. Many happy returns."
[Britton of course lived for another 10 years till he was 97!]
- Hwa A. Lim, sitting next to Britton Chance on the way to the Dallas/Forth Worth International Airport after delivering "Convergence of Biotechnology and Nanotechnology", October 18, 2001, Workshop in Honor of Britton Chance on his 88^th Birthday, The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, 2001.

Exchanges on September 23, 2002, en route to lunch -
Hal to James Cleeve:
   "You spoke about all the legal cases I am going to talk about tomorrow."
Cleeve:
   "But I only touch on them. You will elaborate more on them."
Frans:
   "Everything you want to say have been said. Only that no one listens."
...
   "My job today is to make sure you listen."
- Hwa A. Lim, opening statement, "Patentability in Biotechnology", Bioinformatics Workshop - An odyssey of the Bioinformatics kind, J.W. Marriott Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, September 23-24, 2002, September 23, 2002.

"People think that more information is always better. This cannot be further from the truth. Let me give you a counter example:
When I was young, I had a date. On the way to send her home, we came upon a T-junction. Not knowing how to get to her home,
  I asked, 'Do I turn left or right?'
  She confidently responded, 'Left.'
That was a useful piece of information - to get to her home, I had to turn left at the T-junction.
Just as I was approaching the T-junction,
  She burst out, 'Maybe it is right?'
Now she just nullified a 'good' piece of information.
That was an eventful evening. We were at her home late - I had an extra hour with her, but much to her dad's chagrin, she was late for home. She was grounded for weeks.
And mind you, those were the days before cellular phone existed. Grounded meant no communication, that is, no information."
- Hwa A. Lim, Plenary Lecture, "Informatics, Bioinformatics, and Bininformatics", International Meeting on Frontiers of Physics, the Year of Physics to commemorate the centennial years of Einstein s 1905 breakthrough paper on relativity, The Mines, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2005.

"We are trained to think of skills as something we develop for the workplace. But think of them as strengths, and they open up a huge number of opportunities. Learning to dance well is developing such a skill!"
- Hwa A. Lim, chairing "Soar to New Heights" a fundraising event for Children with Special Needs, Milpitas, California, USA, February 26, 2011.

"I have this bright idea; it is so bright that it burns out before I have the chance to tell anyone. What was your question again?"
- Hwa A. Lim, on how dancing can help retard the onset of dementia, Silicon Valley, California, USA, 2011.

"Sorry. I write many books; I do not write the same book many times [once published]."
- Hwa A. Lim, when a publishing house editor asked if he would revise one of his best-selling books, San Jose, California, USA, December, 2011.

"I did not choose bioinformatics, circumstances chose me.
First of all, all things have to be situated - there have to be environments in which they can cause interactions and, so to speak, ask their own questions.
I was using supercomputers at von Newmann Center at Princeton, I was at a supercomputer institute with all the computing resources, the genome project was just beginning, I had the good fortune to meet, among others, Charles Cantor, James Watson, Sydney Brenner... The timing was ripe, and I was at the right place.
Whatever you want to claim, the truth is no genome project, no bioinformatics; no computing resources, no bioinformatics. That simple. That was about 1986, 1987."
- Hwa A. Lim, at an interview about "bioinformatics", San Jose, California, USA, May, 2012.

"I would prefer someone who brings along a seed to another who drags along a whole tree."
- Hwa A. Lim, presiding over a meeting, Silicon Valley, California, USA, 2014.

"Oh Jack Ma, I know him but he may not remember me."
"We were both keynote speakers at conferences^* in Silicon Valley in 2000. He spoke on e-commerce and I spoke on bioinformatics."
"Now 15 years later, he is some $30 billion more famous than I am. He is phenomenal!"
- Hwa A. Lim, when someone asked him about the record-making IPO of Alibaba, Silicon Valley, California, USA, September, 2014.
^* 'Silicon Valley Conference: Internet and Venture Investment' (August 25-26, 2000, Santa Clara Convention Center) and 'e-Venture: Now & Future' (August 27, 2000, Santa Clara Convention Center).

"I am trained to be a scientist. I also have a social life, like other scientists, including some of those very famous ones, such as Albert Einstein who loved the violin, Richard Feynman who loved the bongos. But these famous people are so famous for their work that their hobbies are only mentioned in passing.
In these days of social media, when I am out having fun with friends, they would video and post footages on social media, which soon get captured or archived on other social networks. So now I am better known as a fun-loving person than as a scientist.
It took me more than 15 years of hard work to get a little recognition for my scientific work; now it takes less than a week to get noticed on the social media, for things good or silly. This is scary.
Silly and funny things win the popularity contests on social media; science, not even close.
Now you see how some candidates have been trying to tweet themselves into the White House in the 2016 presidential campaign? Substance, qualifications, experience do not matter as much.
To answer your question, I am a scientist who loves to dance, and a very good one at it too!"
- Hwa A. Lim, when a news anchor asked him if he was still a scientist, on World Dance Day, Silicon Valley, California, USA, April 29, 2016.

"Everything that can have a chip in it will have a chip in it, and nearly everything with a chip in it will become a node in humanity s ever-growing big database "
- Hwa A. Lim, in his keynote "From biodata to bigdata", at 2016 China Bio-medicine Industry Investment & Development Summit, in "Fortune 500 (Multinationals) into Jilin", South Lake Hotel, Changchun, Jilin, China, September 29, 2016.

"We are as 'god' and might as well get 'good' at it so we can deliver 'good goods' (both in the commercial and humanitarian sense)..."
- Hwa A. Lim, commenting on the rapid advances in biomedicine in his keynote "Big, Open Q&A in Health and Wealth", at 2018 ICMAC, in "Linking the Belt and Road with Smart Biotech", DoubleTree Hotel, Xiamen, CHINA, July 7, 2018.

"In certain sense, we shape technological trends, and afterwards prevailing technologies shape us..."
- Hwa A. Lim, commenting on the stages of industrial revolution in his keynote "Big, Open Q&A in Health and Wealth", at 2018 ICMAC, in "Linking the Belt and Road with Smart Biotech", DoubleTree Hotel, Xiamen, CHINA, July 7, 2018.

"Is knowledge and intelligence the same thing?
Absolutely NOT.
Knowledge is an intelligence amplifier, if a definition of intelligence is the ability to act nimbly and powerfully in your environments.
Had Confucius possessed Einstein's knowledge base, he could have come up with the theory of general relativity...
And
had Sun Tze possessed our current knowledge base, he could have come up with Bioinformatics or Smart Biotech..."
- Hwa A. Lim, citing a 'Food for Thought' in his keynote "Big, Open Q&A in Health and Wealth", at 2018 ICMAC, in "Linking the Belt and Road with Smart Biotech", DoubleTree Hotel, Xiamen, CHINA, July 7, 2018.

Frequently Asked Questions About Dr. Hwa A. Lim

Where was Dr. Hwa A. Lim educated?

Dr. Hwa A. Lim was raised in Asia and received his top-tier higher education in Europe at the prestigious **Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine** in the United Kingdom, before completing his graduate profile in the United States.