The Chemistry Nobel and Science
Oct. 6th, 2011 09:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
threemonkeysI'm delighted to see that Dan Shechtman has won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his work on quasicrystals. The idea of regular crystalline-like forms that don't have a repeating translational component is just fascinating to me. My PhD research work involved ways of representing three dimensional crystal structural concepts. The basic mathematical model (Space Groups) at the time was thought to represent all crystal forms. Space groups does not allow for five-fold symmetry in crystals. I remember being required to do an on the fly proof of that during a research review (a proof that relies on the assumption that all crystals have a regular repeating translational component).
But even then, we knew that not all solids that appeared crystalline fit the space group model. Ice is a common example and elemental Boron a less common one but even more interesting because it has five-fold components. Also, during the time I was doing my PhD, word was coming through from Russia of experimental evidence of crystals with five-fold x-ray diffraction patterns. So even then, cracks were appearing in the supremacy of the Space Group notion. But here is the crucial thing, the possibility of unprecedented crystal forms did not upset those of us working in this area. It excited us with the prospect that things could be bigger and stranger than we had previously thought. Sure, it meant that the work we were doing was no longer the only way of defining a crystal, but it was still valid as a sub-set of the new greater whole. When Shechtman published and validated his work, it turned that prospect of a bigger picture into a reality. That is often the way science works - an expansion of a vision to a bigger picture.
It is sad to read about some of the personal struggles that Shechtman suffered doing this work. Which isn't to say that he shouldn't have had to struggle in a professional sense. When you introduce something as big and ground changing as his work into the world, you have to expect to be challenged and you have to expect to defend your work with great rigour. The skeptics have a saying "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof". That is the way of the scientific method.
Which brings me to another point about science. Contrary to the way many people view it, science is not a monolithic block of knowledge which explains everything in the universe. Science is a process - a way of taking information and theory and turning it into knowledge. The body of knowledge generated is not science as such, simply the product of it. What is more, as science continues, that knowledge is fed back into the process and may become changed by doing so. The body of knowledge is not fixed but constantly being examined, refined and changed. That is not a failing of science but instead is its strength. I could go on about how people who come at this with fixed belief systems struggle to understand this dynamic concept, but you can draw your own conclusions. What I say instead is congratulations to Dan Shechtman for doing his bit to reshape our view of the universe.
But even then, we knew that not all solids that appeared crystalline fit the space group model. Ice is a common example and elemental Boron a less common one but even more interesting because it has five-fold components. Also, during the time I was doing my PhD, word was coming through from Russia of experimental evidence of crystals with five-fold x-ray diffraction patterns. So even then, cracks were appearing in the supremacy of the Space Group notion. But here is the crucial thing, the possibility of unprecedented crystal forms did not upset those of us working in this area. It excited us with the prospect that things could be bigger and stranger than we had previously thought. Sure, it meant that the work we were doing was no longer the only way of defining a crystal, but it was still valid as a sub-set of the new greater whole. When Shechtman published and validated his work, it turned that prospect of a bigger picture into a reality. That is often the way science works - an expansion of a vision to a bigger picture.
It is sad to read about some of the personal struggles that Shechtman suffered doing this work. Which isn't to say that he shouldn't have had to struggle in a professional sense. When you introduce something as big and ground changing as his work into the world, you have to expect to be challenged and you have to expect to defend your work with great rigour. The skeptics have a saying "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof". That is the way of the scientific method.
Which brings me to another point about science. Contrary to the way many people view it, science is not a monolithic block of knowledge which explains everything in the universe. Science is a process - a way of taking information and theory and turning it into knowledge. The body of knowledge generated is not science as such, simply the product of it. What is more, as science continues, that knowledge is fed back into the process and may become changed by doing so. The body of knowledge is not fixed but constantly being examined, refined and changed. That is not a failing of science but instead is its strength. I could go on about how people who come at this with fixed belief systems struggle to understand this dynamic concept, but you can draw your own conclusions. What I say instead is congratulations to Dan Shechtman for doing his bit to reshape our view of the universe.