2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry Winner Announced

According to an announcement made yesterday, October 5, by representatives from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to investigator Dan Shechtman of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa, Israel, “for the discovery of quasicrystals.”

The scientist spent a great deal of time investigating unusual arrangement configurations inside solid materials. This led him to the discovery of quasicrystals, which contain mosaics of atoms arranged in never-repeating regular patterns. Most scientists believed these materials did not exist.

Shechtman fought against established theories, until ultimately he was able to prove that these arrangements could indeed be found in nature. He first discovered the never-repeating sequences of atoms on April 8, 1982.

Until his studies, researchers were convinced that a crystal could only be made up of atom patterns that repeated themselves at one point. But the researcher's electron microscope indicated that this was not necessarily the case.

When first published, these results incited a great debate in the international scientific community, which eventually forced the researcher to leave his study group. In time however, others became willing to analyze the fundamental nature of matter as well.

As the years passed, researchers discovered that a Russian river produced natural quasicrystals. Similar arrangements were then discovered in a type of steel, where they apparently increased the material's strength as if it was armored.

For his contribution to changing the way science looks at atomic arrangements, and for the hard times he endured in the process, the Nobel Foundation decided to award Shechtman with this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

The award totals 10 million SEK (Swedish Krona), which is the equivalent of $1.46 million. The Israeli investigator is the first scientist award by the Nobel Foundation this year to receive the prize alone.

Thus far, only the winners of the prizes in medicine and physics were announced. The 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine goes to researchers Bruce A. Beutler, Jules A. Hoffmann and the late Ralph M. Steinman.

The 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics goes out to three scientists, “for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae.” Saul Perlmutter will receive half of the award, whereas the other half will be split between Brian P. Schmidt and Adam G. Riess.

Further details of quasicrystals can be viewed here and here.