Post by ScientificNet Publisher in Materials Science and Engineering

In 1982 Nobel Laureate Dan Shechtman (pictured left) discovered a #crystal with 5-fold symmetry - a form that was thought to be impossible. His new crystals, called #quasicrystals, caused uproar, and eventually textbooks had to be rewritten across the globe. On the morning of 8 April 1982, an image counter to the laws of nature appeared in Dan Shechtman’s electron microscope. In all solid matter, atoms were believed to be packed inside crystals in symmetrical patterns that were repeated periodically over and over again. For scientists, this repetition was required in order to obtain a crystal.