Dan Shechtman
Who was Dan Shechtman?
Nobel laureate: Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2011)
Biographical data adapted from Wikipedia’s article on Dan Shechtman (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Biography
Dan Shechtman, born on January 24, 1941, in Tel Aviv, is an Israeli materials scientist. He is the Philip Tobias Professor of Materials Science at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and also works with the US Department of Energy's Ames National Laboratory and Iowa State University as a Professor of Materials Science. Shechtman studied at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and became an expert in materials science and crystallography.
On April 8, 1982, during a sabbatical at the U.S. National Bureau of Standards in Washington, D.C., Shechtman made a groundbreaking discovery in crystallography. He found the icosahedral phase, a new type of matter with quasiperiodic crystal structures. This led to a new area of study on quasicrystals, which have an atomic arrangement that was previously thought impossible according to classical crystallography principles.
Shechtman's discovery was initially met with a lot of skepticism because it challenged basic beliefs about crystalline materials. Many considered such structures impossible based on traditional crystallography. However, as Shechtman continued his research and gathered more evidence, quasicrystals began to be accepted as a valid type of material. This discovery earned him the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, making him one of six Israelis to have won this prize in chemistry.
Over his career, Shechtman has received many prestigious awards for his scientific contributions, including the Israel Prize in 1998, the Wolf Prize in Physics in 1999, the Gregori Aminoff Prize in 2000, the EMET Prize in 2002, and the Silver Medal of the President of the Senate in 2012. His work has had significant effects on materials science, impacting areas like metallurgy, chemistry, and physics. He is married to a woman named Tzipora or Zipora Shechtman, according to various records.
Before Fame
Born in Tel Aviv during the British Mandate period, Shechtman grew up in the early years of Israeli statehood. He went to the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, one of Israel's top scientific schools, where he focused on materials science. This area of study was just starting to take shape, combining bits of physics, chemistry, and engineering.
Shechtman's rise in the scientific world was influenced by the quick advancements in electron microscopy and crystallographic techniques in the mid-20th century. These new tools allowed researchers to look at the atomic structure of materials in ways never before possible, paving the way for discoveries that would question accepted ideas about how crystals form and how atoms are arranged.
Key Achievements
- Discovery of quasicrystals and the icosahedral phase in 1982
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2011) for the discovery of quasicrystals
- Opening the new field of quasiperiodic crystal research
- Wolf Prize in Physics (1999) for contributions to materials science
- Israel Prize (1998) for his scientific achievements
Did You Know?
- 01.Shechtman's discovery of quasicrystals was initially met with such skepticism that he was asked to leave his research group
- 02.The first quasicrystal he discovered was in an aluminum-manganese alloy
- 03.He recorded his initial observation in his laboratory notebook with the entry 'Ten-fold???'
- 04.Natural quasicrystals were later found in meteorites, suggesting their formation under extreme conditions
- 05.He received an honorary doctorate from Aix-Marseille University in 2015
Family & Personal Life
Awards & Honors
| Award | Year | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Nobel Prize in Chemistry | 2011 | for the discovery of quasicrystals |
| Israel Prize | 1998 | — |
| Wolf Prize in Physics | 1999 | — |
| Silver Medal of the President of the Senate | 2012 | — |
| Gregori Aminoff Prize | 2000 | — |
| The EMET Prize for Art, Science and Culture | 2002 | — |
| James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials | 1987 | — |
| Rothschild Prize | — | — |
| Clarivate Citation Laureates | 2008 | — |
| honorary doctor of the Aix-Marseille University | 2015 | — |
| honorary doctorate of Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava | 2024 | — |