Scientific history is littered with ideas ridiculed and cast out at birth, only to be subsequently accepted in the face of overwhelming proof. Copernicus and his theory that the sun, and not the earth, was the centre of the solar system faced public ridicule and ostracism by the Church, only to be accepted many years later. The same goes for Darwin and his theory of evolution and natural selection, which still faces opposition in some quarters. In much the same vein, this year?s awardee for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Dan Shechtman, faced intense ridicule and disbelief when he first claimed that he had discovered a special type of crystals that defied the prevailing belief on how they are structured. The prevailing belief among scientists was that crystals were formed with atomic structures that were symmetric and recurring. Thus, when Shechtman claimed in 1982 that he had found a type of crystal with a non-recurring pattern, nobody believed him. It was only years later that other scientists around the world found similar non-recurring crystals, called quasi crystals, and Shechtman?s discovery was confirmed. These quasi crystals, due the their nature, are fundamentally interesting to scientists, since they differ from anything they had seen before and, most interestingly, the patterns of atoms they found in these crystals were already present in Islamic works of art like the medieval Islamic mosaics of the Alhambra Palace in Spain and the Darb-e Imam Shrine in Iran. These mosaics, in fact, have really helped scientists understand the nature of these crystals.
The practical applications of quasi crystals are limited as yet, but their properties of being non-sticky, rust-free and heat-resistant have endless potential, according to the Nobel Committee that awarded Shechtman his prize. It is heartening to see that Shechtman didn?t have to wait as long as Copernicus and Darwin to be vindicated.
