Home Dan Shekhtman
(born January 24, 1941, Tel Aviv, Palestine) - Israeli physicist and chemist; winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry; Professor at Iowa State University, USA; Professor at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology University; Chairman of the TPU International Scientific Council. By the Resolution of the TPU Academic Council dated January 29, 2016 (Minutes No. 1), Dan Shekhtman was awarded the title of Honorary Member of TPU.
Biography
Dan Shechtman was born in Tel Aviv in 1941. He received a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the Technion in 1966, a master's degree in 1968, and a doctor of philosophy (PhD) in 1972. After receiving his PhD degree prof. Shechtman spent three years studying the properties of titanium aluminides at the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, USA. In 1975, he joined the materials science department at the Technion. In 1981 - 1983 At Johns Hopkins University, together with the NIST Institute (USA), he studied rapidly cooled alloys of aluminum with transition metals. The result of these studies was the discovery of the icosahedral phase and the subsequent discovery of quasiperiodic crystals. In 1992 - 1994 prof. Shekhtman studied the influence of defective structures of crystals grown by chemical vapor deposition on their growth and properties. In the period 2001-2004. prof. Shekhtman headed the scientific department of the Israeli Academy of Sciences and Humanities. In 2004 prof. Shechtman began working at the Ames Laboratory at Iowa State University.
In 1996, Shechtman was elected a member of the Israeli Academy of Sciences, in 2000 - a member of the US National Academy of Engineering, and in 2004 - a member of the European Academy of Sciences.
On January 17, 2014, he announced his decision to stand as a candidate for the 2014 Israeli presidential elections. According to the election results, he was not elected, having received 1 vote out of 120 in the first round of elections.
Since 2014, he has headed the International Scientific Council of Tomsk Polytechnic University.
- Awards
- 1986 - Frydenberg Foundation Prize in Physics
- 1988 - Rothschild Prize
- 1998 - Israeli State Prize in Physics
- 1999 - Wolf Prize in Physics
- 2000 - Grigory Aminov Prize
- 2000 - EMET Award
- 2008 - European Society for Materials Science Award
- 2011 - Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Selected bibliography
- D. Shechtman: Twin Determined Growth of Diamond Wafers, Materials Science and Engineering A184 (1994) 113
- D. Shechtman, D. van Heerden, D. Josell: fcc Titanium in Ti-Al Multilayers, Materials Letters 20 (1994) 329
- D. van Heerden, E. Zolotoyabko, D. Shechtman: Microstructural and Structural Characterization of Electrodeposited Cu/Ni multilayers, Materials Letters (1994)
- I. Goldfarb, E. Zolotoyabko, A. Berner, D. Shechtman: Novel Specimen Preparation Technique for the Study of Multi Component Phase Diagrams, Materials Letters 21 (1994), 149-154
- D. Josell, D. Shechtman, D. van Heerden: fcc Titanium in Ti/Ni Multilayers, Materials Letters 22 (1995), 275-279
“Rules of Life” by Nobel laureate Dan Shechtman
A good scientist, firstly, works on important questions and makes discoveries. Secondly, he knows how to communicate well with colleagues. Thirdly, he is a teacher, because passing on knowledge to the next generation is very important.
I always talked about science with my children, and now I talk with my grandchildren. Get kids excited about science starting in kindergarten. Make science seem easy to them. I am now sitting with my grandson, who has just started school - we are learning geometry. One day we drew a triangle, then a square, then a pentagon, a hexagon. I asked, “What happens if you draw an infinite number of angles?” He replied: “Circle.” That is, what is explained to adult schoolchildren, he understood at the age of five.
The most important people in the world are teachers. They are the ones who pass on knowledge to the next generation. The main task of any government is to adequately pay good teachers.
In Russia the main problem is the English language. Everyone must speak English. My first language is Hebrew, I learned English as an adult: I just realized that I couldn’t do science without it. Whether we like it or not, it is now a universal language for discussing any subject in the world.
Science has no boundaries. There is no Russian, American or Israeli science. If you write an article in Russian, few people will be able to read it and understand that you are a great scientist.
An idea is 20% of success. When you launch a startup, you do a market survey, collect information about competitors, find out how to produce the product, what equipment is needed, and, if necessary, look for a partner. You also rent premises, hire staff - you take many, many actions, which ultimately ensure 80% of success. This is a huge job. Therefore, there are millions of good ideas, but literally only a few are translated into reality.
Failure is normal. Always start again, no matter how many times you “fly by”. With each attempt, the chances of winning increase. Most people succeed at least the second time, or even the third time.
To be honest, I won the Nobel Prize because I am not a very good startup manager. It's either one or the other. Otherwise, I would be a rich man - but without a Nobel Prize.
If a schoolchild or a very young student who had chosen the path of a scientist asked me what science to pursue, I would recommend molecular biology. It is her methods that will help solve most of our problems and get rid of the most serious diseases. Cancer drugs are what we really need. As well as personalized medicine - drugs selected for each individual person. I think there will inevitably be an explosion of technology in this area.
I am against editing the human genome. But we cannot prevent the development of this technology. Of course, you can pass prohibitive laws, but there will always be a place in the world where this will be done. It is impossible to stop the process. But I think this is bad. I wouldn't want a person to produce genetically modified people. It is very dangerous. But, on the other hand, the better we understand the human body, the greater the chance of defeating incurable diseases.
A.P. Stakhov
Quasicrystals by Dan Shechtman: another scientific discovery based on the “golden ratio” awarded the Nobel Prize
2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry announced in Stockholm
The award went to Israeli scientist Daniel Shechtman from the Haifa Institute of Technology. The prize was awarded for the discovery of quasicrystals (1982). Shekhtman first published an article about them back in 1984.
Opening quasicrystals is a revolutionary discovery in the field of chemistry and crystallography because it experimentally demonstrated the existence of crystal structures in which icosahedral or pentagonal symmetry, based on the "golden ratio". This refutes the laws of classical crystallography, according to which pentagonal symmetry is prohibited in inanimate nature.
The famous physicist D. Gratia assesses the significance of this discovery for modern science as follows: “This concept led to the expansion of crystallography, the newly discovered riches of which we are just beginning to explore. Its significance in the world of minerals can be put on a par with the addition of the concept of irrational numbers to rational numbers in mathematics."
As Gratia points out, “the mechanical strength of quasicrystalline alloys increases sharply; the absence of periodicity leads to a slowdown in the propagation of dislocations compared to conventional metals... This property is of great practical importance: the use of the icosahedral phase will make it possible to obtain light and very strong alloys by introducing small particles of quasicrystals into the aluminum matrix.” That is why quasicrystals are currently attracting the attention of engineers and technologists.
Who is Daniel Shechtman? Shechtman was born in Tel Aviv in 1941, graduated from the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa in 1972 and has been working there as a researcher ever since. The scientist discovered quasicrystals - unique chemical configurations with a unique pattern - in 1982, refuting the usual idea of the structure of crystals.
“According to previous chemical canons, crystals are always “packed” in symmetrical patterns. However, Shekhtman's research showed that the atoms in some crystals are arranged in a unique configuration, and the arrangement of the atoms obeys the law of the golden ratio. Creating materials with a quasicrystalline configuration allows one to obtain amazing properties of an object, in particular amazing hardness. Quasicrystals got their name due to the fact that their crystal lattice not only has a periodic structure, but also has symmetry axes of different orders, the existence of which previously contradicted the ideas of crystallographers. Currently, there are about a hundred varieties of quasicrystals.”
For the first time about Dana Shekhtman and quasicrystals I wrote on the website “Museum of Harmony and the Golden Section”, created by me together with Anna Sluchenkova in 2001. And Shekhtman was one of the first who spoke very warmly about our Museum. His letter was very brief: "Alexei! Your site is wonderful! Thank you very much. Dan Shekhtman."
But it is worth a lot because it came from a future Nobel Laureate.
By the way, this Nobel Prize is not the first awarded for a scientific discovery based on the “golden ratio”. In 1996, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to a group of American scientists for the discovery of “fullerenes”. What are "fullerenes"? The term "fullerenes" »
are called closed carbon molecules of the type C 60, C 70, C 76, C 84, in which all the atoms are located on a spherical or spheroidal surface. The central place among fullerenes is occupied by the C 60 molecule, which is characterized by the greatest symmetry and, as a consequence, the greatest stability. In this molecule, which resembles the tire of a soccer ball and has the structure of a regular truncated icosahedron (see figure), the carbon atoms are arranged on a spherical surface at the vertices of 20 regular hexagons and 12 regular pentagons, so that each hexagon is bordered by three hexagons and three pentagons, and each the pentagon is bordered by hexagons. 
Truncated icosahedron (a) and structure of the C 60 molecule (b)
They were first synthesized in 1985 by scientists Robert Curl, Harold Kroto, Richard Smalley. Fullerenes have unusual chemical and physical properties. So, at high pressure, C 60 becomes hard like diamond. Its molecules form a crystalline structure, as if consisting of perfectly smooth balls, freely rotating in a face-centered cubic lattice. Due to this property, carbon C 60 can be used as a solid lubricant. Fullerenes also have magnetic and superconducting properties.
Russian scientists A.V. Eletsky and B.M. Smirnov in his article “Fullerenes” note that “fullerenes, the existence of which was established in the mid-80s, and the effective technology for isolating them was developed in 1990, have now become the subject of intensive research by dozens of scientific groups. The results of these studies are closely monitored by application firms. Since this modification of carbon has presented scientists with a number of surprises, it would be unwise to discuss the forecasts and possible consequences of studying fullerenes in the next decade, but one should be prepared for new surprises."
From the point of view of the “mathematics of harmony”, dating back to Pythagoras, Plato and Euclid and based Platonic solids, "golden ratio" And Fibonacci numbers(Alexey Stakhov. The Mathematics of Harmony. From Euclid to Contemporary Mathematics and Computer Science, World Scientific, 2009) ,
these two discoveries are official recognition of the indisputable fact that modern theoretical natural science is going through a difficult stage of transition to a new scientific paradigm, which can be called “Harmonization of theoretical natural science”, that is, to the revival of “the harmonic ideas of Pythagoras, Plato and Euclid” in modern science. One has only to marvel at the brilliant foresight of Pythagoras, Plato and Euclid, who over two thousand years ago predicted the role that Platonic solids and the “golden ratio” can play a role in modern science.
But a similar process, which can be called “Harmonization of Mathematics,” occurs in mathematical science. There are no Nobel Prizes awarded in the field of mathematics. But in this area, with the help of Fibonacci numbers and the “golden ratio”, two of the most important mathematical problems posed by Hilbert were solved, in 1900 - Hilbert’s 10th and 4th problems.
Full text available at
A.P. Stakhov, Quasicrystals of Dan Shekhtman: another scientific discovery based on the “golden section” was awarded the Nobel Prize // “Academy of Trinitarianism”, M., El No. 77-6567, pub. 16874, 10/07/2011
October 05, 2011. 70-year-old Haifa Technion professor Dan Shechtman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his revolutionary discovery in the field of crystal structure. Shechtman became the tenth Nobel laureate in the history of the State of Israel and the fourth Israeli chemist to receive the highest scientific award.
The Nobel Committee's report notes that Shechtman's discovery in 1982 caused fierce controversy in the scientific community: Schechter's "quasi-crystals" contradicted the fundamental scientific axioms of his time, and the scientist was even asked to leave his research group.
Shekhtman and his colleagues discovered a “forbidden” fifth-order symmetry in crystalline solids: the atoms in a quasicrystal are packed into an icosahedron - a regular decahedron. It is impossible to fill space with such decahedrons without gaps and overlaps, so it was believed that icosahedrons are impossible in crystal structures (just as parquet in the form of regular pentagons is impossible).
Shechtman had to defend his discovery in a bitter struggle, and in the end his work forced scientists to reconsider the most fundamental views on the structure of matter, the Nobel Committee emphasizes. As a result of Shekhtman's discoveries, a new field of physical chemistry was born, dealing with the study of quasiperiodic crystals.
Two years ago, Israeli Ada Yonath received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Before her, eight Israelis became Nobel laureates: Shmuel Yosef Agnon (literature), Abraham Gershko and Aaron Ciechanover (chemistry), Robert Auman and Daniel Kahneman (economics). Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres won the Nobel Peace Prize. Israelinfo.ru
Daniel Shechtman discovered the first quasicrystal in 1984 - it was an alloy of aluminum and manganese, the atoms of which were located in quasi-lattice structures. As Lars Telander, Chairman of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, noted, the history of the discovery is known almost every minute.
The discovery was made at the boundary of several sciences. The study of quasicrystals is an interdisciplinary science that combines chemistry, physics, mathematics and materials science. A quasicrystal is one of the forms of atomic organization characterized by five or more axes of symmetry.
Chief curator of the main fund of the Mineralogical Museum named after. Fersman Mikhail Generalov told Izvestia that confirmation of Shekhtman’s theory was found in Russia.
Since the 13th century, it was believed that the number of crystalline structures was strictly defined, explains Generalov. - The discovery of a placer of aluminum-manganese minerals on the territory of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug several years ago became independent confirmation of Professor Shekhtman’s discovery. The minerals were found in the area of the Khatyrka River in Koryakia and were named Khatyrkit and Kupolit. Their crystal structure corresponds to the structure of quasicrystals.
Dmitry Pushcharovsky, dean of the geological faculty of Moscow State University, emphasized that Shekhtman was mocked by the entire scientific world until quasicrystals, later called icosahedrites, were found in Russia.
This structure increases the strength of the material significantly,” says Pushcharovsky. -
Daniel Shechtman is a Nobel laureate.
Nobel laureate October 2011 Dan Shekhtman
He and his discovery had to be criticized by the scientific community in classical crystallography. And as a result, he became a Nobel Prize laureate in 2011.
When asked by a journalist how he managed to survive then, he replied:
“However, the ability to go against the grain manifested itself in me as a child, when the whole class said: “You’re wrong,” and I continued to insist on my own: they say, you’re all wrong, and I’m right. I have never been afraid to have my own opinion that is different from the majority.”
Humanity is connected with the crystalline world, since this is the physical-bio-chemical basis of our physical body. And she is intelligent, just like all the nature that surrounds us.
The New Time sets us up for a person to discover in himself and in the external environment a New Knowledge of the structure of crystals and the crystalline nature of light. And even basic knowledge and physical laws of the organization of matter are parted to help humanity enter a new stage of evolution.
Everyone who is interested in crystallography knows today about the amazing discovery of quasicrystals. Quasicrystals are one of the forms of organizing the structure of solids, along with crystals and amorphous bodies.
They have a number of unique properties and do not fit into the existing theory, which was laid down in 1611 by the German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Keppler in his treatise “On Hexagonal Snowflakes.” Crystallography allows only 32 point symmetry groups, since symmetry axes of only 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 orders of magnitude are possible in crystals.
However, quasicrystals have long-range order in the arrangement of molecules and point symmetry of a penta-, ten-, eight- and dodecagon, which refutes the well-known “laws of nature.”
This story is about the scientist Dan Shekhtman, a researcher in the field of chemistry and physics, a professional expert in modern electron microscopes, who went “against the tide of old laws”, believing and defending his discovery.
Dan Shechtman was born on January 24, 1941 in Tel Aviv and as a child he dreamed of becoming an engineer, like the hero of the novel “The Mysterious Island” by Jules Verne, who turned a deserted island into a lush garden. Following his dream, Shekhtman entered the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa to study mechanical engineering.
After graduating in 1966, he could not find a job and decided to continue his studies at the master's degree. Shekhtman fell in love with science and went to doctoral studies. During his studies, he became enraptured by the electron microscope and perfected his methods of using it.
It was with the help of an electron microscope that Dan Shechtman conducted experiments on electron diffraction on a rapidly cooled alloy of aluminum with transition metals.
This happened at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the USA. On the morning of April 8, 1982 (the exact date of discovery, which, by the way, is very rare, was preserved thanks to Shekhtman’s journal), he studied the diffraction pattern that was obtained after scattering a beam of electrons on a sample of a quickly solidifying alloy of aluminum and manganese.
As a result of such scattering, a set of bright dots usually appears on the photographic plate, the location of which is related to the arrangement of atoms in the lattice of the crystalline material.
Electron diffraction pattern on a quasicrystal
Seeing such a picture, Shekhtman was extremely surprised. In his own words, he even uttered aloud a phrase in Hebrew that can be roughly translated as “This simply cannot be”, writing in his journal: “10th order???”
It was quite easy to understand Shekhtman: his discovery contradicted everything that people knew about the structure of crystals at that time.
This discovery made him one of the most unpopular scientists in crystallography.
He fell victim to the conservatism of science, which rejects ideas that differ from the mainstream of research. Shechtman faced disbelief, ridicule and insults from colleagues at the US National Bureau of Standards, where the Israeli scientist worked while on vacation at the Technion.
His scientific career was severely tested when Linus Pauling, a scientific luminary and two-time Nobel laureate, called him a “quasi-scientist” and called his ideas nonsense.
Shekhtman even managed to publish an article with the results of his experiment only two years after it was written, and even then in an abbreviated form.
The first recognition came in the mid-1980s, when colleagues from France and India managed to repeat the experiment of the Israeli scientist, proving that the impossible is possible and quasicrystals really exist.
The publication of the article had the effect of a bomb exploding. Many scientists suddenly suddenly remembered that they either heard from colleagues or themselves received similar paradoxical results.
For example, already in 1972, researchers discovered that crystals of sodium carbonate (ordinary soda) scatter electrons “incorrectly,” but later, however, they attributed everything to measurement errors and material defects.
In December 1984, almost immediately after Shekhtman’s publication, in Physical Review Letters an article by Dov Levin and Paul Steinhardt appeared, and then a similar work by Soviet scientists in February 1985, which explained the process of formation of the unusual material.
Using McKay's work, they became the first physicists to connect Shechtman's results with the then rich mathematical developments on non-periodic partitions of plane and space. Also, Lewin and Steinhardt were the first to use the word “quasicrystal”.
This and subsequent work convinced the scientific community of the truth of Shekhtman's discovery. And in 2009, an American-Italian team with Paul Steinhardt discovered quasicrystals in nature for the first time.
They consist of atoms of iron, copper and aluminum and are contained in the mineral khatyrkite in a single place - on the Koryak Highlands, in Chukotka, near the Listvenitovy stream.
The 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Daniel Shechtman, a professor at the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, “for the discovery of quasicrystals.” It is characteristic that in the message of the Nobel Committee about the award of the prize in the field of chemistry for 2011 to Dan Shechtman, it was especially emphasized that “his discoveries forced scientists to reconsider their ideas about the very nature of matter.”
