{"112241":{"#nid":"112241","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Shechtman Maps Long Road to Nobel Prize in GT Lecture","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIn 1982, Dan Shechtman made a discovery that would turn 70 years of crystallography on its head. As years went by and he fought to convince scientists around the world of his find, the person who emerged as his chief antagonist happened to be perhaps the most influential chemist in history, with two Nobel Prizes on his shelf.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFinally, in 2011, Shechtman earned the ultimate vindication, with a Nobel of his own.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn a standing-room-only lecture on Feb. 23 at Georgia Tech, Shechtman told the story of his 1982 discovery of quasi-periodic crystals, which went against everything that was known about the structure of crystals and resulted\u201430 years and many scientific battles later\u2014in his being awarded \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.nobelprize.org\/nobel_prizes\/chemistry\/laureates\/2011\/press.html\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003Ethe 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/content\/lecture-nobel-laureate-dan-shechtman-feb-23-2012\u0022 target=\u0022_self\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECLICK HERE FOR VIDEO OF THE LECTURE\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShechtman, who is Philip Tobias Professor of Materials Science at the Technion \u2013 Israel Institute of Technology (\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/events\/distinguished-lecture-nobel-laureate-dan-shechtman\u0022 target=\u0022_self\u0022\u003Eclick here for full bio and abstract\u003C\/a\u003E), laid the groundwork for his audience by explaining that modern crystallography began in 1912 with the seminal work of German physicist Max von Laue. Von Laue established the three basic principles of crystalline structure: order, periodicity and rotational symmetry. Shechtman then carefully defined each term, concluding with the universally accepted\u2014until Shechtman\u2019s discovery\u2014definition of crystals as \u201csolids composed of atoms arranged in a pattern that is periodic and in three dimensions,\u201d and that the rotational symmetry of crystals could be one-, two-, three-, four- or six-fold\u2014never five-fold and never more than six.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBut in 1982 as a young faculty member at the Technion, Shechtman one day discovered an apparent tenfold crystalline rotational symmetry in a crystal composed of aluminum and manganese, and further found that the crystal\u2019s structure was not periodic but quasi-periodic. To drive home his own surprise at the time, Shechtman displayed an image of the actual page from his 30-year-old notebook, with \u201c10fold!!!\u201d written clearly by a set of notations.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cAt the end of the day, I knew this was something new and exciting,\u201d he said, further adding that years earlier in graduate school he\u2019d been given a test in which he had to prove that such rotational symmetry in crystals was impossible. \u201cAnd I did it. I passed the test. I would not be here [talking to you] if I hadn\u2019t.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESo began a decade-long odyssey of Shechtman persisting to convince more and more scientists of his findings. First it was his group research leader at the U.S. National Bureau of Standards (now called the National Institute of Standards and Technology), who called Shechtman a \u201cdisgrace\u201d and kicked him out of the group. Then it was members of the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr), who rejected the study due to Shechtman\u2019s having used an electron microscope; the IUCr insisted that legitimate studies of crystalline diffraction used X-rays, not electron beams.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFinally it came down to one man: Linus Pauling, winner of Nobel Prizes in two different fields and one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century. Pauling rejected the idea of quasi-periodic crystals right up until his death in 1994, and envious colleagues used Pauling\u2019s objections to argue against Shechtman\u2019s academic promotions, even as crystallographers around the world came to accept his work.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn the end, of course, the discovery was accepted, and Shechtman proudly pointed to a new definition of crystals, adopted in 1991, that acknowledges \u201caperiodic crystals \u2026 in which three-dimensional lattice periodicity can be considered to be absent.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt is a soft, humble definition,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd a humble scientist is a good scientist.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShechtman\u2019s visit was sponsored by the Georgia Tech colleges of Computing, Science and Engineering, as well as the Georgia Tech Executive Vice President for Research, the Georgia Tech Research Institute, the Georgia Tech Institute for Leadership and Entrepreneurship, the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.aiccse.org\/\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EAmerican-Israel Chamber of Commerce-Southeast Region\u003C\/a\u003E, the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.aieise.org\/\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EAmerican-Israel Educational Institute\u003C\/a\u003E, and \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.givenimaging.com\/en-us\/Pages\/GivenWelcomePage.aspx\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EGiven Imaging\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIn a standing-room-only lecture on Feb. 23 at Georgia Tech, \nDan Shechtman told the story of his 1982 discovery of quasi-periodic \ncrystals, which resulted\u201430 years and many scientific battles \nlater\u2014in his being awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. \u003Cem\u003ESource: Office of Communications\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27174","created_gmt":"2012-02-24 14:23:08","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:11:44","author":"Mike Terrazas","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2012-02-24T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2012-02-24T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"112231":{"id":"112231","type":"image","title":"Shechtman 2012 Lecture Photo","body":null,"created":"1449178213","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:30:13","changed":"1475894731","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:45:31","alt":"Shechtman 2012 Lecture Photo","file":{"fid":"194151","name":"dan1.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/dan1_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/dan1_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":381914,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/dan1_0.jpg?itok=IzTvV-3a"}}},"media_ids":["112231"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"16651","name":"crystallography"},{"id":"24351","name":"Dan Shechtman"},{"id":"4045","name":"Israel"},{"id":"7715","name":"Nobel Prize"},{"id":"25061","name":"technion"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}