Once-Ridiculed Discovery Redefined the Term Crystal
Daniel Shechtman's discovery that atoms in a solid can achieve fivefold symmetry by arranging themselves in a pattern that almost but never quite repeats—a "quasicrystal"—has netted this year's Nobel Prize in chemistry. In 1982, Daniel Shechtman of the Technion-Israel Institute o...
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Published in | Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 334; no. 6053; p. 165 |
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Main Author | |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
American Association for the Advancement of Science
14.10.2011
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Daniel Shechtman's discovery that atoms in a solid can achieve fivefold symmetry by arranging themselves in a pattern that almost but never quite repeats—a "quasicrystal"—has netted this year's Nobel Prize in chemistry.
In 1982, Daniel Shechtman of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa discovered an alloy of aluminum and manganese that appeared to have fivefold symmetry: that is, the atoms in it formed a pattern that appeared essentially the same when rotated by a fifth of a turn, or 72˚. Other researchers scoffed, as such an arrangement was thought to be mathematically impossible. Yet scientists eventually realized that atoms in a solid can achieve such symmetry by arranging themselves in a pattern that almost but never quite repeats—a "quasicrystal." Shechtman's discovery has now gone from ridicule to ultimate accolade: It has netted this year's Nobel Prize in chemistry. |
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ISSN: | 0036-8075 1095-9203 |
DOI: | 10.1126/science.334.6053.165 |