I have been working in the area of solid state chemistry for nearly four decades. When I first got seriously interested in the subject in the early 1950s it was still in in infancy. Very few chemists, let alone others, recognized solid state chemistry as an integral part of the main-stream chemistry. In spite of such benign tolerance, solid state chemistry has gradually emerged to become a crucial component of modern solid state and material science.

R. A. Mashelkar (28 February 1995). Solid State Chemistry: Selected Papers of C N R Rao. World Scientific. p. 4. ISBN 978-981-279-589-2.