Dan Shechtman

Quasicrystals: atoms in perfect order that never repeats (1982-1984)

• In 1992 the International Union of Crystallography replaced its definition of a crystal as a repeating pattern with a broader one, based on sharp diffraction spots, to make room for quasicrystals.^[3],[9]
• Sandvik's stainless steel, strengthened by tiny quasicrystal particles, is used in razor blades and fine needles for eye surgery. Shechtman calls it the best application of his discovery.^[3],[6],[15]
• A rock from Russia's Koryak Mountains holds natural quasicrystals. Isotope tests published in 2012 showed it is part of a meteorite that probably dates from the birth of the solar system, about 4.5 billion years ago.^[3],[24]
• Quasicrystal research has fed into the design of photonic and phononic bandgap materials, structures that stop chosen wavelengths of light or sound from passing through.^[22]
• His Technion course in technological entrepreneurship drew 800 students the first time it ran. By 2016, by his own count, more than 10,000 engineers and scientists had taken it.^[14],[17]

Shechtman's impact is mainly on knowledge. He showed that atoms can be perfectly ordered without repeating. That forced crystallographers to redefine the crystal and opened a field that draws on chemistry, physics and mathematics. Hundreds of quasicrystals are now known, including natural ones in a meteorite from the early solar system. We record no quantified claims. Quasicrystals have found real but niche uses, such as Sandvik's quasicrystal-strengthened steel for razor blades and surgical needles, plus short-lived non-stick cookware. But no published figures measure their value, and a NIST scientist whose laboratory made the original alloy says no quasicrystal application has revolutionized anything. Counting his entrepreneurship students, more than 10,000 by his own estimate, would measure attendance, not benefit. His most lasting effect may be the lesson the Nobel committee drew from his story: a careful observer who trusts the evidence can overturn a consensus, and scientists should stay humble enough to listen.

Fundamental scienceTechnologyEducation

No number is given here on purpose. Some contributions cannot be counted honestly, and we would rather describe them than invent a figure.

• Minor

  Defense-funded origins

  His 1981-1983 project at the US National Bureau of Standards was sponsored by DARPA, the US Defense Department's advanced research agency, to develop aluminium alloys for aerospace. Shechtman says the high-manganese alloys he went on to test, including the quasicrystal one, were far too crumbly for aircraft, and that his sponsor had encouraged him to explore freely.^[6],[10]

• Minor

  Applications oversold

  Coverage of the prize highlighted experiments with quasicrystals in frying pans, engines and LEDs. Sitram's quasicrystal-coated pans were withdrawn after salt etched the coating, and a NIST colleague judges that quasicrystals have had no transformative commercial application. Their main impact has been on scientific understanding.^{[2],[3],[13],[15]}

• 1941

  Other

  Born in British-ruled Palestine during World War II, as Britain restricted Jewish immigration under its 1939 White Paper. His family came from Ukraine, where Jews had suffered deadly pogroms under the tsars. Palestine's Jews escaped the Holocaust because the British stopped the German advance at El Alamein in 1942.^{[1],[11],[20],[28]}

• 1948

  War

  Aged seven, he lived through the declaration of Israel's independence and the war that followed, which he remembers vividly.^[18]

• 1966

  Other

  When he graduated in mechanical engineering in 1966, a deep recession in Israel meant he could not find a job. He stayed at the Technion for a master's degree, earning a living as a teaching assistant.^[11],[16]

• 1982

  Other

  After he reported fivefold symmetry, his group leader at the National Bureau of Standards gave him a textbook to read, then told him he was a disgrace to the group and asked him to leave. Another group took him in. The Nobel presentation speech called the ridicule he suffered deeply unfair.^{[3],[4],[6],[7],[16]}

• 1984

  Other

  The Journal of Applied Physics rejected his first paper on the discovery almost immediately. A shorter paper with John Cahn, Ilan Blech and Denis Gratias appeared in Physical Review Letters in November 1984.^[3],[9],[12]

• —

  Other

  Linus Pauling, a two-time Nobel laureate, spent the last decade of his life proposing ever larger periodic crystal models to explain the patterns away, and died in 1994 without accepting quasicrystals.^{[9],[12],[16]}

Shechtman was born in Tel Aviv to Yitzhak and Natania Shechtman. His mother's parents came from Ukraine, then in the Russian Empire, during the Second Aliyah wave of Zionist immigration; her father, Zeev Ashur, arrived in 1906. Ashur was a printer and Labor Zionist organizer who worked with David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi. His father came from Ukraine in the 1930s and also became a printer. As a youth Dan belonged to the Zionist youth movement Hashomer Hatzair. He is secular: asked in 2013 whether he believed in a god, he said no. He speaks of his work in patriotic terms, saying he teaches entrepreneurship for Israel.^{[11],[14],[16],[19],[25],[26],[27]}

1. January 24, 1941

   Born in Tel Aviv, in British-ruled Palestine. His maternal grandfather, Zeev Ashur, was a printer and early Labor Zionist organizer.^{[1],[11],[25]}

2. 1948

   Aged seven, lives through Israel's independence and the war that follows. As a boy he reads Jules Verne's The Mysterious Island about 25 times and dreams of becoming an engineer.^[11],[18]

3. 1966

   Earns a BSc in mechanical engineering at the Technion after army service. A recession leaves him jobless, so he stays on for a master's degree and falls in love with science.^{[11],[14],[16]}

4. 1972

   Completes a PhD in materials science at the Technion, becoming an expert in electron microscopy, then spends three years at a US Air Force research laboratory in Ohio.^{[1],[11],[14],[27]}

5. 1975

   Joins the Technion's materials engineering faculty in Haifa.^[11],[14]

6. 1981

   Begins a two-year sabbatical at the US National Bureau of Standards in Maryland, on a DARPA-sponsored project to develop aluminium alloys for aerospace.^{[6],[10],[11]}

7. April 8, 1982

   Sees a forbidden tenfold electron diffraction pattern in a rapidly cooled aluminium-manganese alloy and spends the afternoon ruling out twinned crystals.^[2],[3],[12]

8. November 12, 1984

   Publishes the discovery in Physical Review Letters with Ilan Blech, John Cahn and Denis Gratias. Weeks later Dov Levine and Paul Steinhardt name the materials quasicrystals.^[3],[9],[12]

9. 1986

   Becomes a full professor and creates the Technion's course in technological entrepreneurship, which he goes on to teach for three decades.^{[13],[14],[17]}

10. 1992

    The International Union of Crystallography adopts a broader definition of a crystal that includes quasicrystals.^[3],[9]

11. 1999

    Receives the Wolf Prize in Physics for the experimental discovery of quasicrystals.^[23]

12. 2004

    Joins Iowa State University and the US Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory, dividing his time between Iowa and Haifa.^[21]

13. December 10, 2011

    Receives the unshared Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering quasicrystals. At the banquet he urges scientists to champion education, reason and tolerance.^[1],[2],[5]

14. 2014

    Runs for president of Israel with the backing of ten Knesset members, saying he wants to improve education. He receives one vote.^[13],[19]

1. 1.Dan Shechtman - Facts · NobelPrize.org (Nobel Prize Outreach)
2. 2.Press release: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2011 (5 October 2011) · The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences / NobelPrize.org, 2011
3. 3.Crystals of golden proportions (Popular information, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2011) · The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences / NobelPrize.org, 2011
4. 4.Award ceremony speech, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2011 (Sven Lidin) · NobelPrize.org, 2011
5. 5.Dan Shechtman - Banquet speech (10 December 2011) · NobelPrize.org, 2011
6. 6.Transcript from an interview with Dan Shechtman (Adam Smith, 6 December 2011) · NobelPrize.org, 2011
7. 7.Dan Shechtman - Interview (including telephone interview transcript, 5 October 2011) · NobelPrize.org, 2011
8. 8.Scientific Background on the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2011: The Discovery of Quasicrystals · The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences / NobelPrize.org, 2011
9. 9.The Discovery of Quasi-Periodic Materials (Nobel lecture slides, 8 December 2011) · NobelPrize.org, 2011
10. 10.Dan Shechtman (NIST and the Nobel) · National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2016
11. 11.The Person behind the Nobel Prize: Dan Shechtman · National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2016
12. 12.The Nobel Moment: Dan Shechtman · National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2016
13. 13.The Prize's Legacy: Dan Shechtman · National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2016
14. 14.Who is Dan Shechtman? · Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, 2011
15. 15.QuasiCrystals, Shechtmanite... Future Applications (President's Report 2015) · Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, 2015
16. 16.Dan Shechtman: 'Linus Pauling said I was talking nonsense' · The Guardian (The Observer), 2013
17. 17.Committed to Teaching Science and Entrepreneurship: Dan Shechtman · Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings, 2016
18. 18.Books, battles and magnifying glasses · ISRAEL21c, 2018
19. 19.Roots and Wings with Boris Burda: Dan Shechtman, from a family of Ukrainian immigrants · Huxley (huxley.media)
20. 20.Holocaust Survivors and the Establishment of the State of Israel (May 14, 1948) · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
21. 21.Iowa State, Ames Laboratory's Shechtman wins Nobel Prize in Chemistry · Inside Iowa State (Iowa State University), 2011
22. 22.Discoverer of Quasicrystals Awarded Chemistry Nobel Prize · Inside Science (American Institute of Physics), 2011
23. 23.Dan Shechtman - Wolf Prize Laureate in Physics 1999 · Wolf Foundation
24. 24.Evidence for the extraterrestrial origin of a natural quasicrystal (Bindi et al., PNAS 109:1396-1401) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (via PubMed Central), 2012
25. 25.Zeev Ashur (Hebrew Wikipedia) · Wikipedia
26. 26.Dan Shechtman (Hebrew Wikipedia) · Wikipedia
27. 27.Daniel Schechtman · Jewish Virtual Library (American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise)
28. 28.Pogroms · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia