Israeli Scientist Wins Nobel Prize for Chemistry

(From the nytimes.com) An Israeli scientist won this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering a material in which atoms were packed together in a well-defined pattern that never repeats. Recent Nobel prizes have generally split credit for scientific advances among two or three people, but this year’s chemistry prize and accompanying 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.4 million) went to a single scientist: Daniel Shechtman, 70, a professor of materials science at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.

The citation from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences states simply, “for the discovery of quasicrystals.”

Such regular but non-repeating patterns, defined by precise rules, have been known in mathematics since antiquity and are found in mosaics of medieval Islamic tiles, but it was thought impossible in the packing of atoms.

Dr. Shechtman discovered the same type of structure while studying a metal mix of aluminum and manganese. His notebook recorded the exact date: April 8, 1982.  

Read more here: Israeli Scientist Wins Nobel Prize for Chemistry