Materials Scientist Dan Shechtman Wins 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
 |
On October 5, 2011, the Nobel Prize Committee honored materials scientist Dan Shechtman of Technion in Haifa, Israel, with the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for the discovery of quasicrystals." But those five official words describing his discovery in 1982 do not even hint at the years of scientific turmoil from which Shechtman emerged triumphant only after a long battle with prominent dissenters in the scientific community. Shechtman spoke as a plenary lecturer at the XX International Materials Research Congress in Cancun, Mexico, on August 17 this year, and the Materials Research Society filed a version of the following story (with some augmentation here) on his talk.
Quasi-periodic Materials—Crystal Redefined
Plenary Lecture by Dan Shechtman
Plenary Lecture by Dan Shechtman
In a fascinating, funny, and heartfelt exploration of the nature of scientific discovery and the complications that come from being right when most of your colleagues think you are wrong, Dan Shechtman of Technion (Israel) and Iowa State University (United States) told the story surrounding his discovery of quasi-periodic crystals in 1982. Along the way he outlined the history of crystallography and provided a great brush-up tutorial on the subject for those of us who studied it a long time ago.
