Prof. Dan Shechtman was awarded with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2011 for the discovery of quasicrystals. He had to fight a fierce battle against established science because the configuration found in quasicrystals was considered impossible. His discovery in the early 1980s changed chemistry.
What does it take to win a Nobel Prize besides knowledge? How long is the path to great discoveries and receiving recognition? These are my advises: Be professional. It's very important be expert in something and my advice to young people is the following: Choose a subject in science that you like and become the best in it, be the best in your class, the best in your school, the best in the country. Try to be the best in something, in something that you like.
If you are a scientist - a man or woman, a scientist with a discovery or a novel idea or something theoretical that came up in your calculations, then number one: Make sure that you are correct, that you are right. That means that you have to be a professional in what you are doing, you have to know your science very well. Once you are professional you can stand tall against rejection. But always prepare yourself to listen. And what I said to people who rejected me was: If you think that my experiments are not correct, repeat my experiments and show me what's wrong. Buy me a coffee