Technion scientist Dan Shechtman joins nine other Israelis who have previously won the illustrious prize in various fields.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFDan Shechtman 311(photo credit: YouTube screenshot)
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2011 to Israeli scientist, Prof. Daniel Shechtman of the Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. Shechtman is the tenth Israeli or Israeli-born scientist to win a Nobel Prize, and the fourth to win for chemistry.His discovery in 1982 that atoms in rigid crystals can be packed together in unusual ways led to the development of extremely strong materials from metal surgical tools and razor blades to diesel engines, and as protective coatings and metal alloys. What became known as quasiperiodic or quasicrystals do not rust or become oxidized and have almost no surface friction.The following is a list of Israel’s Nobel laureates:1. Dan Shechtman – awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2. Ada E. Yonath – awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her studies on the structure and function of the ribosome3. Robert Aumann – awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis
4. Aaron Ciechanover – awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery with Avram Hershko and Irwin Rose of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation5. Avram Hershko – awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery with Aaron Ciechanover and Irwin Rose of ubiquitin-medicated protein degradation6. Daniel Kahneman – awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work in prospect theory7. Yitzhak Rabin – awarded the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize together with Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat8. Shimon Peres – awarded the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize together with Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat for the peace talks he participated in as foreign minister, producing the Oslo Accords
9. Menachem Begin – awarded the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize with Anwar Sadat for signing a peace treaty with Egypt10. Shmuel Yosef Agnon – awarded the 1966 Nobel Prize in Literature for his profoundly characteristic narrative art with motifs from the life of the Jewish people.
