Nobel World
The Voyage
A. H. Zewail. Voyage Through Time: Walks of Life to the Nobel Prize,
American University in Cairo (AUC),
Cairo, 2002; so far in 17 languages and editions: English, French,
German, Spanish, Romanian, Hungarian (in press), Russian, Arabic,
Chinese, Korean, Bahasa Malaysian, Indonesian, Hindi; and 4 editions.
For detailed reviews of this book see, for example, articles written by
W. Sibbett,
B. V. McKoy and C. A. McKoy, and
M. Chergui.
For this journey on the road to the Nobel prize, I have been asked several
times to write a biography, or at least a biographical summary of my life. I
declined these invitations. I was of the opinion that a traditional biography
should represent a lifetime of work and experience and much effort and time are
needed to do it well. In July of 1997 while on a trip to Cairo this strong
feeling softened to a more moderate one. I was stimulated to ask a few
questions by two books I was reading, one titled
A
History of Knowledge by Charles van Doren and the other
Making Waves
by Charles Townes. How did I acquire knowledge? Why did I become a
scientist? What are the forces that have determined the walks of my own
life? What are the meanings of faith, destiny, and luck? In the attempt
to answer such complex questions, I began to sketch my thoughts...
At 5:40 in the doggone morning on Tuesday,
October 12, Ahmed Zewail got a phone call.
But it wasn't a wrong number or a particularly
ambitious aluminum-window salesman—it was
the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences informing
him he had won the 1999 Nobel Prize in chemistry.
The citation reads, in part, that Zewail "is
being rewarded for his pioneering investigation of
fundamental chemical reactions, using ultra-short
laser flashes on the time scale on which the reactions
actually occur"...
Conferences and Collaborations
Under the chairmanship of the inventor of the laser, Prof. Charles H.
Townes surrounded by six Nobel Prize winners (Nicolaas Bloembergen,
Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, John L. Hall, Charles K. Kao, Herbert Kroemer,
and Ahmed H. Zewail) and many other personalities in science, economics,
technology and medicine, we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the
laser...
Organized by Universität Wien, Technischen Universität Wien, Universität
für Bodenkultur, and the city of Vienna/Wiener Vorlesungen, the Fourth
Vienna Seminar of Nobel Laureates was devoted to research in chemistry.
Five Nobel Laureates (Robert Huber, Jean-Marie Lehn, Roger Tsien, Kurt
Wüthrich, and Ahmed Zewail) were invited to reflect on their work and to
share their views on science, innovation, and technology transfer with
broader audiences...
This unique occasion gathers the leading competence from three broad
scientific areas to discuss energy issues from an interdisciplinary
perspective. This Nobel Symposium is the first to include all of the
natural science categories of the Nobel Prize: physics, chemistry and
physiology or medicine. The purpose is to create conditions for exchange
and interaction, partly between different disciplines and partly
between promising young researchers and the world's leading
researchers...
The Nobel Foundation's Symposium program was initiated in 1965. Since
that time
more than a hundred symposia have taken place. The symposia are devoted
to
areas of science where breakthroughs are occurring or deal with other
topics of
primary cultural or social significance. A series of Nobel Centennial
Symposia
was organized in 2001 to commemorate 100th anniversary of the Nobel
prizes given out for world-class accomplishments in physics, chemistry,
literature, peace, and physiology or medicine...
Molecular Frontiers,
a global effort to promote the understanding and appreciation of molecular science in society.
Molecular Frontiers, a world-wide virtual institute, will seek to
strengthen
the position of science in society—among the public, in education and
among politicians—as a primary approach to describing and analyzing
reality. The institute will provide a forum for exchange and analysis of
scientific advances and their implications, and will employ various
strategies to engage the public in an open dialogue. The institute's
activities will promote scientific knowledge in general with special
emphasis on the molecular perspective. As knowledge may be considered a
right to all, global open access will be a guiding principle...
Science and Technology
New Centers
At Caltech, the main mission of the newly-established Physical Biology
Center for Ultrafast Science and Technology (UST) is to develop the
science and technology for observing complex molecular structures in
motion using diffraction, spectroscopy, and microscopy. Such combined
atomic-scale resolutions in space and time constitute the basis for a
new field of study in what we refer to as four-dimensional (4D)
structural dynamics...
Back to the Future
On a recent official visit to southeast Asia, a prime minister
asked me: "What does it take to get a Nobel prize?" I answered
immediately: "Invest in basic research and recruit the best
minds." This curiosity-driven approach seems increasingly oldfashioned
and underappreciated in our modern age of science. Some
believe that more can be achieved through tightly managed research—as if
we can predict the future. I believe this is an unfortunate
misconception
that affects and infects research funding. History teaches us the value
of free scientific inquisitiveness...
In over a century of developments, the discipline of
chemical physics, which evolved from physical chemistry, has had a
major impact on chemistry and all related molecular sciences, including
biology and materials science. While physicists were working to decipher
the structure of the atom—and indeed managed to tame it—chemical
physicists were trailblazing into the world of molecules with new tools,
some from physics, and new concepts. In retrospect the impact is
monumental, considering that in 1938 the most versatile organic
laboratory instrument was the thermometer...
It is now possible to determine three-dimensional
structures, with atomic scale resolution, in systems ranging from small
molecules to crystals, and from DNA and proteins to viruses and
particles. The latest is the work on the structure of the ribosome
protein-making machine which was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in
Chemistry. However, a full description of biological functions, chemical
reactions or phase transitions requires real-time visualization of the
actual events, i.e. the ability to follow a sequence of steps
characterizing a given process...
A. H. Zewail.
Perspectives on Knowledge and Humanity, in
Twelve Scientists on the Twenty-First Century, eds. I. Szemenyei, I. Goldperger,
A. Erdélyi, G. Staar, Tinta Publishing, Budapest, 2009, p. 117.
As far as the twenty-first century is concerned, the major issues facing the
world are many, but I would rather focus on the ones that threaten our
peaceful coexistence. The first is education. It is disturbing that in the
knowledge-based twenty-first century there are countries with populations approaching
50% illiteracy. And women are not given the appropriate status
for education and career opportunities in many countries, so the
workforce is reduced in value...
A. H. Zewail.
The World in 50 Years, in
The Way We Will Be 50 Years from Today, ed. M. Wallace, Thomas
Nelson, Nashville, 2008, p. 228.
The world is an uncertain place, which is why the
future and the unknown absolutely fascinate us. Veteran television
journalist Mike Wallace asked the question "What will life be like 50
years from now?" to sixty of the world's greatest minds. Their responses
offer a fascinating glimpse into the cultural, scientific, political,
and spiritual moods of the times...
Since the beginning of human civilization, science and technology has progressed in a
continuous process. Fire must have been an exciting new technology for the first humans
and to this day we are continuing research to fully answer the question, what is fire?
But the search for new knowledge is based on rational thinking, which is fundamental
for progress and for making new discoveries...
Selected Publications and Books
Latest Press Releases
Techniques recently invented by researchers at the California Institute
of Technology (Caltech) which allow the real-time, real-space
visualization of fleeting changes in the structure of nanoscale matter
have been used to image the evanescent electrical fields produced by the
interaction of electrons and photons, and to track changes in
atomic-scale structures.
Papers describing the novel technologies appear in the December 17
issue of
Nature and the October 30
issue of
Science.
Four-dimensional (4D) microscopy — the methodology upon which the new techniques were based — was developed at Caltech's
Physical Biology Center for Ultrafast Science and Technology...
Nobel Laureate Ahmed Zewail, the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemistry
and professor of physics at the California Institute of Technology
(Caltech), has been named an envoy in the new U.S. Science Envoy
Program, created to foster science and technology collaborations between
the United States and nations throughout the Middle East, North Africa,
and South and Southeast Asia. Zewail, who was also appointed to
President Obama's
Council of Advisors on Science and Technology earlier this year, is one of three eminent Americans who will serve as the first scientist-diplomats in the new program...
President Barack Obama named Nobel laureate Ahmed Zewail of Caltech to
the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
Zewail, 63, of San Marino, is the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemistry
and a physics professor at Caltech. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in
Chemistry in 1999 for his pioneering work in femtoscience, which makes
it possible to observe atoms in motion.
Zewail will maintain his current duties at Caltech, according to the
school. His new responsibilities involve joining scientists, educators
and other experts in meeting with Obama every other month. The
council
is tasked with advising the president on matters of education, energy,
health, climate change, environment, security and the economy...
More than a century ago, the development of the earliest motion picture
technology made what had been previously thought "magical" a reality:
capturing and recreating the movement and dynamism of the world around
us. A breakthrough technology based on new concepts has now accomplished
a similar feat, but on an atomic scale—by allowing, for the first time,
the real-time, real-space visualization of fleeting changes in the
structure and shape of matter barely a billionth of a meter in size.
Such "movies" of atomic changes in materials of gold and graphite,
obtained using the technique, are featured in a paper appearing in the
November 21
issue of the journal
Science. 4D microscopy videos can be viewed at the
UST web site...
The World Cultural Council will present the
2006 Albert Einstein World Award of Science
to Nobel laureate Ahmed Zewail, the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical
Physics and professor of physics at the California Institute of
Technology.
This recognition is for his "pioneering development of the new field of
femtoscience and for his seminal contributions to the revolutionary
discipline of physical biology, creating new ways for better
understanding the functional behavior of biological systems by directly
visualizing them in the four dimensions of space and time," according to
the World Cultural Council's announcement...
Nobel Prize-winning chemist and physicist Ahmed Zewail has received an $17.5
million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to create the
Ultrafast Science and Technology (
UST) Center at the California Institute of Technology.
The center will focus on a new scientific discipline at Caltech for which Zewail has coined the name
physical biology.
The field will create new ways of understanding the dynamical behavior
of biological systems by directly observing them in the four dimensions
of space and time...
Education
Public Lectures and Discourse
Professor
Ahmed Zewail has presented over three hundred named, plenary, and
keynote lectures, including: Andersen (Hans Christian), Bernstein (UCLA,
Wisconsin), Berson,
Bodenstein, Cavendish (Scott Series), Celsius, Condon, Aimé Cotton,
Coulson, Debye, Einstein (Berlin, New Delhi,
Mexico), Eyring, Faraday,
Franklin (Benjamin),
Gandhi, Helmholtz, Hinshelwood, Karrer, Kirkwood,
Kistiakowsky, Lawrence, Lewis (G. N.), London,
Nobel, Novartis, Noyes, Onassis, Oppenheimer, Ørsted, Othmer, Pascal (Blaise), Pauling,
Perrin, Pimentel, Planck, Polanyi, Raman, Roberts, Röntgen,
Schrödinger, Solvay,
U Thant (United Nations), Thomson (J. J.), Tolman, Watson, Welch, Wilson, and Zewail.
A. H. Zewail.
Franklin's Vision,
Speech at the Annual General Meeting of the American
Philosophical Society in celebration of the Franklin Tercentenary,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 27, 2006.
On this special occasion of the Tercentenary, I am
especially delighted to speak in honor of a polymath and an
American icon, Benjamin Franklin. Since his death in
1790, Franklin has been revered, memorialized, and made into an educational,
financial, and political icon. Through his collective work this
sage has climbed to the apex of human endeavor in the sciences, public
service, and statesmanship in international relations. Such great heights
for a man of wit and wisdom are reached by very few in the world, both
then and now...
A. H. Zewail.
Light and Life,
Ninth Rajiv Gandhi Science and Technology Lecture, Rajiv Gandhi Institute
for Contemporary Studies, Bangalore, India, October 17, 2002.
Scientific research is the subject of this lecture, but I
wish to focus here on one of its pillars—the value of curiosity-driven research and its impact on our life, the life of
the "haves" and "have-nots". For this scientific endeavour,
I will demonstrate my point from the study of one phenomenon
that has occupied the thinking of humans
throughout history—it is the phenomenon of light. What
is light?
Ever since the dawn of history, humans have been the benefactors of time's miracles,
but at the same time they have been baffled by time's mysteries. More than six
millennia ago, the philosophy and measurement of time occupied the minds of
scholars in the land of Bibliotheca Alexandrina, and, even today we struggle with the
meaning of time. In this overview, I present some concepts and techniques developed
in the science and technology of time, and an exposé of some of the
mysteries and
miracles that are in harmony with physical and life sciences...
A. H. Zewail.
It is Possible,
One Hundred Reasons to be a Scientist, 2nd ed., ICTP, Trieste, 2005,
p. 260.
On the banks of the Nile, the Rosetta branch, I was
born in Damanhur, the "City of Horus", only 60 km
from Alexandria. In retrospect, it is remarkable that my
childhood origins were flanked by two great places—Rosetta, the city where the famous Stone was
discovered, and Alexandria, the home of ancient
learning...
Dissemination of Knowledge
Picture this: a movie revealing the inner workings
of a cell or showing a nanomachine in action.
A new microscopy is making such imaging possible. Four-dimensional electron
microscopy produces "movies"
of nanoscale processes occurring
over time intervals as short as
femtoseconds (10-15 second). The technique builds up each
frame of the movie from thousands
of individual shots taken
at precisely defined times.
It has applications in a wide
range of fields, including materials
science, nanotechnology
and medicine...
In this paper, the evolutionary and revolutionary developments of
microscopic imaging are overviewed with a perspective on origins. From
Alhazen's camera obscura, to Hooke and van Leeuwenhoek's
two-dimensional optical micrography, and on to three- and
four-dimensional (4D) electron microscopy, these developments over a
millennium have transformed humans' scope of visualization. The changes
in the length and time scales involved are unimaginable, beginning with
the visible shadows of candles at the centimetre and second scales, and
ending with invisible atoms with space and time dimensions of
sub-nanometre and femtosecond...
For decades, researchers have relied on static images provided by electron
microscopy and static diffraction patterns provided by X-ray crystallography to
infer how a system operates. The major drawback to these otherwise very powerful
techniques is that no direct experimental evidence is gathered about the
structure of the transition states of the system. That is, these techniques can only
provide information about the three spatial dimensions; while information about
how the system behaves in the fourth dimension—time—remains a mystery.
Therefore, to overcome this fundamental problem, a methodology that can access
all four dimensions simultaneously must be realized and demonstrated. The
development of such a technology would mark a great day in the advancement of
human knowledge. Fortunately, that day has arrived with the advent of Ultrafast
Electron Microscopy (UEM)...
The concept of the atom, proposed
24 centuries ago and rejected by Aristotle,
was born on a purely philosophical basis,
surely without anticipating some of the
20th century's most triumphant scientific
discoveries. Atoms can now be seen, observed
in motion, and manipulated...
With ultrashort pulses of laser light, it has become possible to observe
physical, chemical and biological changes with a resolution of femtoseconds, 15
orders of magnitude faster than the human heart beat, reaching the scale of
atomic motion, spatial and temporal...
In 1872 railroad magnate Leland
Stanford wagered $25,000 that a
galloping horse, at some point in
stride, lifts all four hooves off the
ground. To prove it, Stanford employed
English photographer Eadweard Muybridge.
After many attempts, Muybridge
developed a camera shutter that
opened and closed for only two thousandths
of a second, enabling him to
capture on film a horse flying through
the air.
During the past century, all scientific
disciplines from astrophysics to zoology
have exploited high-speed photography
to revolutionize understanding
of animal and mechanical motions that
are quicker than the eye can follow...
With new laser techniques and with gas
phase and molecular beam
experiments, it is now possible to
determine the ultrafast motion in
isolated chemical reactions: chemistry
on the 10-13-second time scale...
With sufficiently brief and intense radiation, properly tuned
to specific resonances, we may be able to fulfill a chemist's dream,
to break particular selected bonds in large molecules...
World Affairs
Selected Commentaries
The process of transformation begins with democracy, but it does not end there. The first
uprising brings political change; a second is now needed to transform Arab learning. The
failure of Arab education is one of the underlying causes of youth discontent in the region
and has serious cultural, economic and political consequences...
The Egyptian people have overthrown the
Mubarak regime in a peaceful revolution.
Now that the tumult has subsided, the hard
work of reconstruction must begin. There is
a strange mix of excitement and trepidation
in the air, but underlying it all is the
prospect of real progress — not least in
reintroducing Egypt's leadership of the
Arab world...
A. H. Zewail.
Egypt's Next Steps,
International Herald Tribune, February 3, 2011 (also
published in the
New York Times on February 2, 2011).
The revolt that has erupted across Egypt is in many ways historic and
should take the nation into a hopeful future. What's unexpected, even by
the Egyptians themselves, is that this intifada is led by youth, the
so-called Facebook children, with no religious or ideological agenda
other than a better future for Egypt and its people...
Earlier this year I was in Alexandria, speaking about educational reform in front of a packed auditorium of students,
teachers, and professionals. I was there as the US president's science envoy to the Middle East. I was surrounded by
talented young people, ambitious for themselves and for their country. They represent the hope of Egyptian society
and are the ones whom Barack Obama's Cairo initiative, "to seek a new beginning between the United States and
Muslims around the world ... based upon mutual interest and mutual respect", must motivate and engage...
In today's world, America's soft power is commonly thought to reside in the global popularity of Hollywood
movies, Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Starbucks. But the facts tell a different story. In a recent poll involving 43
countries, 79% of respondents said that what they most admire about the United States is its leadership in science
and technology. The artifacts of the American entertainment industry came in a distant second...
Throughout human history, science and technology have been the backbone of innovations that
have driven economic development. Yet, rather oddly, they have not been seriously invoked in the
pursuit of diplomacy. This Commentary examines the important role of science in diplomacy and
its soft-power in world affairs and peace...
In August, I returned to Egypt, the country of my birth, for the first time since President Obama
spoke in June at the University of Cairo. I discussed the president's address with a veteran
Egyptian diplomat, who described its impact as "historic". Mr. Obama's words were regarded as a
momentous break from the past, spoken by an American president who respects Muslim faith
and culture, and is optimistic about future relations with Muslim nations...
Tomorrow Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John
McCain should have been going toe-to-toe in a televised science debate.
All three were invited by a bipartisan group of Nobel laureates and
other scholars called ScienceDebate 2008 to step on stage at the
Franklin Institute in Philadelphia and explain how they will ensure that
America continues to dominate the sciences. Leading in scientific
research and advancement is an essential element to our future
prosperity, health and national defense...
The cataclysmic wars in Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq
have uncovered the reality of Arab unity and plight, and the collective
conscience of international society. It is abundantly clear that the
Arab people must themselves build a new system for a new future. The
current state, as judged by a low GDP, high level of illiteracy, and
deteriorating performance in education and science, is neither in
consonance with their hearts and minds nor does it provide for their
political, economic, and educational aspirations...
Five years after September 11, we must ask, can
western wars solve the so-called global conflict with the Islamic world?
The answer, in my opinion, is no. A far better state of world peace
would be achieved if the West would make a serious commitment to the
just resolution of conflicts, and be genuinely involved, using a
fraction of war costs, in building bridges to progress and peace with an
understanding of the profound role of pride and faith in the lives of
Muslims...
Selected Publications
On this year's Bastille Day in July, the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, inaugurated
a new initiative for uniting the Mediterranean South with Europe in general, and France
in particular. The aim of the Mediterranean Union (MU), an analogue of the post-Cold War
European Union (EU), is to "lay the foundations of a political, economic and cultural union
founded on the principles of strict equality." Comprising 27 EU members and states from the
Middle East, North Africa, and the Balkans, the MU would in principle unite close to 800 million
people. In June, a meeting was held at the Institut de France with representation from many
academies, scientists, and politicians to discuss possible cooperative programs. The goals
expressed at the meeting are admirable; however, the MU's motives need to be clearly defined,
as the issues for the MU are very different from those for the EU. Most important, thus far missing
in the fabric of the former is an explicit role for education and science...
A. H. Zewail.
The Future of Our World,
5th U Thant
Distinguished Lecture, United Nations University, Tokyo, Japan, April 15, 2003.
Over the last century, our world has experienced at times a "beautiful age"
with promises of peace and prosperity, but then some imposing forces changed
the entire landscape. History reminds us of recurrences, and the current state
of the world is not so different that we may ask—what political and economic
forces cause such disorder in a world seeking prosperity through globalization
and revolutionary advances in technology? Here we will address the need for a
rational world vision that must take into account developments in the
population of the have-nots and dialogues of cultures. It is a vision of
economic, political, religious, and cultural dimensions in world affairs. Only
with such a vision can we shape a bright future for our
world...
The 2002 UNESCO conference, "Science et la quête du sens" in Paris,
was devoted to science and the quest for meaning; the English title,
"Science and the Spiritual Quest", emphasizes the spiritual dimension,
a realm beyond science. Similarly, this chapter, which is based on my
lecture given at the conference, is concerned with dimensions beyond
science—our human existence in civilizations and cultures that may or
may not be in a state of clash...
I am pleased to have this opportunity to share with you some personal
reflections on current issues which I believe may well be at the core of
world peace and stability. Science education and development through
science are the subject of my presentation, and I thought I would use my
personal journey through two cultures, one currently developing and the
other developed, to address issues of concern and what should be done
to achieve progress...
Only a fifth of the population enjoys the benefit
of life in the 'developed world', and the gap between the haves and
have-nots continues to increase, threatening stability. According to the
World Bank, of the 6 billion people on Earth, 4.8 billion live in
developing countries, 3 billion live on less than US$2 a day, and 1.2
billion live on less than $1 a day, which defines the absolute poverty
standard; 1.5 billion people do not have access to clean water...
AZ Foundation and Prizes
The Ahmed Zewail Foundation for Knowledge and
Development was established through the
American
University in Cairo as a non-profit, non-political organization with the purpose of
disseminating useful knowledge. The Foundation currently provides
prizes for
young people who "demonstrate extraordinary commitment to the
pursuit of scientific inquiry and the affirmation of humanistic values". In addition, at the
Opera House one
prize is given annualy for outstanding achievements and creativity in
the arts.
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