Science

Israeli Chemist Finds Ultimate Vindication in Nobel Prize

The Nobel prize winning chemist from Israel wasn’t always held in such high esteem for his findings on quasicrystals.

In fact, Popular Science reports that Daniel Shechtman’s discovery of the unique arrangement of matter was thought to be impossible:

His research was “extremely controversial,” as the Nobel Assembly put it today. He told his colleagues what he’d seen and they laughed him off, he said in an interview earlier this year. He was eventually asked to leave his research group for “bringing disgrace” to its members, he told the Ha’aretz in April.Two years later, he finally published his findings, yet the skepticism remained — and it remained bitter, as the AFP explains it. The famous American chemist Linus Pauling once declared at a conference: “Danny Shechtman is talking nonsense. There is no such thing as quasicrystals, only quasi-scientists,” AFP recalls.

Israeli Chemist Previously Ridiculed for Discovery Wins Nobel Prize

Quasicrystal atomic model. (Image: Wikipedia)

Just what did Shechtman see when he looked into the microscope that was so controversial? Mixing aluminum and manganese then cooling it quickly, when Shechtman through the electron microscope in 1982, he expected to the atoms randomly assembled. But they weren’t at all. In fact, the reflected tenfold symmetry. The New York Times reports that Shechtman had written in his notebook “10 Fold???”

Israeli Chemist Previously Ridiculed for Discovery Wins Nobel Prize

Daniel Shechtman

Five sides could never make a perfectly symmetrical repeating pattern that would characterize a crystal, but it does for a quasicrystal. The New York Times continues:

Even the definition of crystal had to be redefined. Previously, a crystal had “a regularly ordered, repeating three-dimensional pattern,” according to the International Union of Crystallography. The new definition, adopted in 1992, states that a crystal is simply a solid with a “discrete diffraction diagram” — that is, something that produces patterns like Dr. Shechtman saw.

That leaves the door open for yet more different kinds of crystals in the future.

Quasicrystals have since been found in many other materials, including a naturally occurring mineral from a Russian river. Materials scientists have been exploring quasicrystals because of their distinct properties. One kind of highly resilient steel, consisting of hard steel quasicrystals embedded within softer steel, is now used in razor blades and thin needles for eye surgery.

On the flip side of no one believing your science and later winning a Noble prize, this year’s Nobel prize winning physicist, Brian Schmidt, thought he was being pranked by students when he first heard he had won.

Israeli Chemist Previously Ridiculed for Discovery Wins Nobel Prize

Brian Schmidt (Photo: Melissa Adams/The Age)

The Daily Mail has more:

Having become accustomed to mischievous students over his years teaching in Australia, he thought that the woman with the absurdly thick Swedish accent telling him he had won the Nobel Prize for Physics simply couldn’t have been for real.

“I’m thinking, ‘Jeez my graduate students are getting pretty good with the accent this year’,” said Mr Schmidt, who teaches at the Australian National University in Canberra.

But the strange thing was, the Swedish woman was not a teenager up to no good, and the American-born physicist is now a joint winner of the Nobel Prize for his team’s discovery that the universe is expanding at an ever-increasing rate.

[...]

“I feel like when my first child was born,” he said. “I’m kind of weak in the knees and a little, you know, I guess a little… hard to describe, almost speechless at this point.”

Schmidt won the award with U.S. researchers Adam Riess and Saul Perlmutter for their work showing that the universe‘s expansion hasn’t been slowing down since the theorized “big bang” but is actually accelerating. Their research is said to have paved the way for research into dark energy.

Comments (19)

  • stotlaat
    Posted on October 11, 2011 at 3:26am

    : ) bravo! and for you who don’t comprehend a universe that infinitely expands I will include a picture of myself. When I get a wide angle lens

    Report Post »  
  • altmanblaudio
    Posted on October 6, 2011 at 2:50pm

    I think my brain just blew a fuse. How is space…the universe that is infinite expand?

    Report Post »  
    • Paradox777
      Posted on October 7, 2011 at 12:18pm

      Perhaps not so infinite. Look up “Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation” for some insight. Also, this “expanding” is not unexpected:

      Isaiah 40:22 (NKJV)
      “It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.”

      Report Post »  
  • jeffile
    Posted on October 6, 2011 at 10:58am

    Meanwhile, in a related story:Baba El Baba has been submitted for a nobel prize. The esteemed Muslem cleric has developed a very extremely powerful suicide bomb vest which can be easily worn and detonated by small children and women.

    Report Post »  
  • inferno
    Posted on October 6, 2011 at 10:42am

    Another blow to so called “scientists”. They praise a jerk like Gore for winning the prize, and ridicule genuine scientists for their discoveries. No surprise there.

    Report Post »  
  • ed0315
    Posted on October 6, 2011 at 10:11am

    Sort of sounds like the whole Global Warming nonsense and its scientists.

    Report Post » ed0315  
  • Searreigh
    Posted on October 6, 2011 at 9:30am

    Now look what the white people are saying!

    Report Post »  
    • Ray2447
      Posted on October 6, 2011 at 9:52am

      “Honky genius” has a very PC mocking ring to it, don’t you think? :-)

      Report Post »  
  • Rickfromillinois
    Posted on October 6, 2011 at 8:40am

    One of the things that struck me is just how closed minded and intolerant of ideas that differ from their own scientists are. A man comes up with an observation that differs from the majority and the majority of the scientists not only refuse to check on his observations themselves but ridicule him and he loses his job for binging “disgrace” to the organization. Now it would appears that the organization brought the disgrace upon themselves by demonstrating how closed minded they are to anyone who thinks differently from themselves. By the way, I believe that the same thing is happening in the man caused global warming debate. Ignore that the data the theory was based on was purposely corrupted and distorted, ignore any data that shows that the theory is either incorrect or distorted, attack those who disagree and even threaten their lively hood and slander them. What a large group of closed minded jerks. Thank goodness for the minority that actually get things done.

    Report Post » Rickfromillinois  
    • TomFerrari
      Posted on October 6, 2011 at 9:25am

      Good response!

      Report Post » TomFerrari  
    • Islesfordian
      Posted on October 6, 2011 at 9:42am

      Another example of a broad consensus in the scientific community….being wrong.

      Report Post » Islesfordian  
    • Ray2447
      Posted on October 6, 2011 at 9:49am

      Anthropogenic (man-made) global warming is the term real “quasi-scientists” use to describe their conjured up theory.

      Report Post »  
    • OreSota
      Posted on October 6, 2011 at 10:32am

      Nothing new here.
      Early scientists were beheaded for having the audacity to suggest to the King that the earth was not the center of our universe, but that the sun was.
      If you have not watched Ben Stein’s movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Real modern day scientinsts that are trying to start a conversation on intelligent design versus the big bang theory are ridiculed and belittled every where they go.
      It’s sad that scientists, who should be the most open minded people on the planet, can be so shut down to new ideas.

      Report Post » OreSota  
    • Camelid
      Posted on October 6, 2011 at 10:38am

      True scientific advancement comes through the passing-on of old scientists, allowing younger open minds to explore new ideas and areas of interest. It works the same way in medicine. Doctors refused to believe that washing their hands would help prevent infections. It took a new generation of doctors for that simple modification in routine to really be accepted widely.

      Report Post »  
  • liberal_equals_liar
    Posted on October 6, 2011 at 8:17am

    Interesting how this article also points out the mob-mentality that can exist within the science community against the minority opinion. Just goes to show that a majority of scientists can be wrong, and this occurs over and over again in the world’s history.

    Report Post »  
  • deweydewmeyer
    Posted on October 6, 2011 at 7:08am

    In a blink of an eye, the world changes. To think only 500 years ago the world was flat.

    Report Post » deweydewmeyer  
  • Harold B
    Posted on October 5, 2011 at 11:21pm

    It is fantastic how ancient truths about matter and energy are coming to the surface and becoming known. Truth can not disagree with truth and the bible rings true to the truth and evolution becomes amazingly more and more complex and in disagreement with other facts

    Report Post »  
    • woodyl1011fl
      Posted on October 6, 2011 at 10:28am

      Evolution is not becoming more complex. It is being shown to be more than improbable it is absolutely impossible scientifically!!! The information required for increased complexity in living things is totally impossible in an evolutionary scenario. Matter by itself cannot produce what it does not already have within it; that is information for increased complex development. Information is not materially quantifiable and not produced by natural processes it must be imposed from without from a mind beyond our comprehension; although we don’t want admit that. Randomness/chance processes no matter how much fanciful time is allotted to the concept will never produce information.

      Report Post »  

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