Summary
In the latest post, we talked about the three Nobel Prize Winners in 2010. Here we will introduce the winner in 2011 in chemistry--- Dan Shechtman
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Born in Tel Aviv, Israel, Dan Shechtman is Philip Tobias Professor of Materials Science at the Technion---Israel Institute of Technology. In 1982, he discovered the icosahedral phase, which gave the openness of quasiperiodic crystals.
His wife is the head of the Department of Counseling and Human Development at Haifa University. They have a son and three daughters, all of them are excellent in psychology.
In 1972, Shechtman obtained his PhD in Materials Engineering from the Technion, where he got his B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering in 1966. He joined the department of materials engineering in 1975. In 1981-1983, he was on sabbatical at Johns Hopkins University and at National Institute of Standards and Technology in 1992-1994. Now in 2004, he also joined the Iowa State faculty, where he spends around five months a year in Ames.
From 1984 to 1994, Shechtman experienced a hard time from the non-periodic interpretation. The person, who is at the opposite position to him, is the two-time Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling and the most famous scientist in the world. However, at the end of the scientific battle, Shechtman enjoyed the moment of victory.
After he had been awarded for the Nobel Prize, the Committee at the Royal Swedish Academy of Science noted that: “his discovery was extremely controversial,” but that his work “eventually forced scientists to reconsider their conception of the very nature of matter.” With the help of his discovery, some other groups can form similar quasicrystals, finding these materials to have low thermal and electrical conductivity.
His discovery---a quasiperiodic crystal (quasiperiodic) is a structure, which is ordered but not periodic. This kind of pattern can fill all available space continually. But it is lack of translational symmetry. It can be used in large aspect, such as, the formation of durable steel, non-stick and cooking equipment.
Shechtman also had been awarded for other prizes, as well as the Nobel Prize. He got the Gregori Aminoff Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science in 2000, EMET Prize in Chemistry in 2002, European Materials Research Society (E-MRS) 25th Anniversary Award and so on.
To get more information on the Nobel Prize, you can keep reading the following post here.