Science Quote by Cecil Frank Powell

Impostor syndrome, dressed in formalwear. Powell opens by acknowledging a private anxiety most public honors politely ignore: the fear that prestige can arrive faster than certainty. The phrase "those placed in the position which I now occupy" deliberately depersonalizes the moment. He turns his own spotlight into a repeatable role, suggesting that the unease is structural, not a quirky personal weakness. That move is doing cultural work: it normalizes doubt as part of serious achievement, especially in a field where the public expects clean authority.

The sentence is built like an acceptance speech, but its real target is the mythology of the lone genius. "Commonly feel concern" is careful, almost laboratory language, and that restraint matters. A physicist isn't supposed to emote; he reports. Powell uses the tone of a measured observation to smuggle in a confession, lending it credibility while keeping sentimentality at bay.

Context sharpens the intent. Mid-century science was becoming a state-backed, institution-heavy enterprise, with prizes and honors turning researchers into public symbols. Powell, a Nobel-winning experimentalist, knew how many hands, instruments, and lucky breaks sit behind any "great honour". By calling the honor something "done them", he hints at its arbitrariness: recognition is conferred, not proven.

Subtext: worthiness is a social judgment, not a scientific one. The line gently reasserts the scientist's proper allegiance - to uncertainty, to method, to the uncomfortable possibility of being wrong - even while standing on a podium built to declare him right.