Quasicrystals scoop prize
The 2011 Nobel laureate in chemistry, Daniel Shechtman, fought hard to win acceptance of his discovery: quasicrystals. Laura Howes tells how perseverance led to the ultimate recognition
On 5 October this year, the 2011 Nobel prize in chemistry was awarded to Daniel Shechtman for the discovery of quasicrystals. But while the quasicrystal community felt vindicated that Shechtman had at last been recognised, the larger scientific community rushed to their textbooks to brush up on these non-periodic crystals.
What soon captured the public imagination though was not the quasicrystals themselves, but the human story behind them. How Shechtman‘s discovery required a complete rethink in the field of crystallography and how Linus Pauling resisted these findings until the day he died.