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Microsoft partners with Technion

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The Technion, Microsoft Co-Establish Academic Research Center For E-Commerce Technologies

Center to specialize in e-commerce basic research

9 October 2011

The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Microsoft Research (MSR) and Microsoft Online Services Division (OSD) announced today their intent to co-establish the Academic Research Center for E-Commerce Technologies. The new Research Center will promote and fund basic research in areas of computer science, artificial intelligence, game theory, economic and psychology, focusing on the connections between these subjects in the e-commerce domain. The center is the first academic research program by Microsoft Research in Israel, a part of the Microsoft R&D Center in Israel.

Through the five-year joint research and education partnership, Microsoft Research and The Technion will explore scientific and technological insights in e-commerce, such as online advertising and the use of social networks for commerce. Microsoft will invest $1.5 million (U.S.) over the next five years.  The center will be located at the Technion campus in Haifa, Israel.

The head of the new center will be Professor Moshe Tennenholtz of the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management. Prof. Tennenholtz has collaborated with Microsoft Research (MSR) for several years and is considered a world-leading expert in E-commerce. Research will be conducted by scientists and research students from several Technion departments along with MSR researchers.


Yoram Yaacovi, General Manager, Microsoft Israel Research and Development Center:

“Microsoft understands that academia is at the heart of technological innovation and seeks to catalyze innovation in research and curricula in leading academic institutions worldwide. Today’s announcement reflects Microsoft’s ongoing commitment to partnering with academia in developing new and advanced technologies.”


David Ku, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Advertising R&D: 

“The joint research center Microsoft Israel is building in collaboration with the Technion is the first of its kind established by Microsoft with Israeli academia – and there are few like it elsewhere in the world. Our goal is to shape a new generation of core technologies for e-commerce that will empower new opportunities for industry and exciting new value for customers. We believe that this cooperation between Microsoft Online Services, Microsoft Research and the Technion has the potential to help usher in the next generation of technology and customer value. “


Professor Boaz Golany, Dean of the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management at the Technion:

“Microsoft’s decision to establish the research center at the Technion is a very strong statement by one of the giants of global technology regarding the position of the State of Israel at the forefront of information & communication technologies and the strength of the Technion in the areas of science and technology. Our partnership with Microsoft is part of The Technion’s strategy that strives for cooperation with large international companies both because of their ability to support large-scale basic and applied research and because of the fact that in many cases these companies expose our researchers to significant challenges, which by being solved will, to a large extent, determine the technological agenda for the coming decades.”


About Microsoft Research

Microsoft Research is dedicated to conducting both basic and applied research in computer science and software engineering. Researchers focus on more than 60 areas of computing and collaborate with leading academic, government and industry researchers to advance the state of the art. Microsoft Research has expanded over the years to twelve facilities worldwide.

About The Technion

The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology is consistently ranked among the world’s leading science and technology universities. As such, it breeds first-rate scientific and technological innovations, many of which have substantial economic potential, as well as notable graduates that are now leading global tech industries. As Israel’s oldest and premier institute of science and technology, the Technion has been an active and leading participant in Israel’s rapid scientific and industrial growth and has played a pivotal role in transforming Israel`s economy and workforce into a leading high tech/high growth economy

Investing in science pays. Israel Nobel Laureate, 2011.

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“It’s not easy being a celebrity, it could impede future research. The Nobel ceremony itself is nothing to be anxious about…the problem is surviving all the events that follow,” 

Technion Nobel Laureate 2004 (Chemistry) Avraham Hershko.

‘Investment in science paying off’

Newest member to Israeli Nobel laureates ‘club’ Daniel Shechtman lauded by past winners who also warn against dwindling investment in sciences

Tomer Velmer

Published:10.06.11, 10:57 / Israel News, YNET


“Shechtman’s Nobel is a victory not only over science, but over scientists as well,” Israeli Nobel laureates said Thursday, following the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences’ decision to award Professor Daniel Shechtman the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Shechtman’s road to the coveted honor was a winding one, and his win – for the discovery of atom patterns thought impossible – was ridiculed before its significance was recognized by the scientific community.

Prof. Avram Hershko, who won the Nobel Chemistry in 2004 congratulated Shechtman: “This is a great achievement for science and for Israel, but you have to remember that all of the recent Israeli Nobel laureates are over 70, and their achievements can be attributed to the investment and support that science in Israel received 30 years ago.”


Shechtman’s discovery, he added, “Was always deemed as revolutionary and Nobel worthy. Unfortunately, over the past decade, the (State’s) financial support of the sciences has taken a blow… If we want to keep being leaders in the field we have to further invest in laboratories and scientists,” he said.

PM Netanyahu with Prof. Shecthman and Technion President Lavie.

Shechtman has already declared that accolades aside – his place is in his lab. Hershko agrees: “It’s not easy being a celebrity, it could impede future research. The Nobel ceremony itself is nothing to be anxious about,” the professor continued, amused, “the problem is surviving all the events that follow.”
Yisrael Aumann, who was awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize in Economics, also congratulated Shechtman: “As Israelis, we like to practice self-flagellation and say that our universities are on the verge of collapse etc, but I say that is not the case.

“I’m proud of Israeli science. Wherever Israelis are they are at the forefront of science. This is a tremendous achievement for Prof. Shechtman, but also for the Technion and Israel; and it’s a day of jubilation for Israel’s higher education system and scientific institutions,” he concluded.
Swedish ambassador to Israel Elinor Hammarskjöld met Thursday with Prof. Daniel Shechtman at the Technion.
Hammarskjöld said that she was honored to meet a scientist whose work was so “inspiring”; and expressed her hope that Israel and Sweden would bolster their scientific ties.
Professor Shechtman met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his office in Jerusalem on Thursday and presented his discovery on a dry-erase board. The meeting was also attended by Technion President Professor Peretz Lavie, Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar and Science and Technology Minister Daniel Hershkowitz.
Netanyahu told Shechtman he hoped many more Israelis will follow in his foot steps and win Nobel prizes thanks to the government’s investment in education. He noted that the government has approved a NIS 7.5 billion (roughly $ 2 billion) increase for the Higher Education budget.


Investing in science pays. Israel Nobel Laureate, 2011.

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“It’s not easy being a celebrity, it could impede future research. The Nobel ceremony itself is nothing to be anxious about…the problem is surviving all the events that follow,” 

Technion Nobel Laureate 2004 (Chemistry) Avraham Hershko.

‘Investment in science paying off’

Newest member to Israeli Nobel laureates ‘club’ Daniel Shechtman lauded by past winners who also warn against dwindling investment in sciences

Tomer Velmer

Published:10.06.11, 10:57 / Israel News, YNET


“Shechtman’s Nobel is a victory not only over science, but over scientists as well,” Israeli Nobel laureates said Thursday, following the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences’ decision to award Professor Daniel Shechtman the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Shechtman’s road to the coveted honor was a winding one, and his win – for the discovery of atom patterns thought impossible – was ridiculed before its significance was recognized by the scientific community.

Prof. Avram Hershko, who won the Nobel Chemistry in 2004 congratulated Shechtman: “This is a great achievement for science and for Israel, but you have to remember that all of the recent Israeli Nobel laureates are over 70, and their achievements can be attributed to the investment and support that science in Israel received 30 years ago.”


Shechtman’s discovery, he added, “Was always deemed as revolutionary and Nobel worthy. Unfortunately, over the past decade, the (State’s) financial support of the sciences has taken a blow… If we want to keep being leaders in the field we have to further invest in laboratories and scientists,” he said.

PM Netanyahu with Prof. Shecthman and Technion President Lavie.

Shechtman has already declared that accolades aside – his place is in his lab. Hershko agrees: “It’s not easy being a celebrity, it could impede future research. The Nobel ceremony itself is nothing to be anxious about,” the professor continued, amused, “the problem is surviving all the events that follow.”
Yisrael Aumann, who was awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize in Economics, also congratulated Shechtman: “As Israelis, we like to practice self-flagellation and say that our universities are on the verge of collapse etc, but I say that is not the case.

“I’m proud of Israeli science. Wherever Israelis are they are at the forefront of science. This is a tremendous achievement for Prof. Shechtman, but also for the Technion and Israel; and it’s a day of jubilation for Israel’s higher education system and scientific institutions,” he concluded.
Swedish ambassador to Israel Elinor Hammarskjöld met Thursday with Prof. Daniel Shechtman at the Technion.
Hammarskjöld said that she was honored to meet a scientist whose work was so “inspiring”; and expressed her hope that Israel and Sweden would bolster their scientific ties.
Professor Shechtman met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his office in Jerusalem on Thursday and presented his discovery on a dry-erase board. The meeting was also attended by Technion President Professor Peretz Lavie, Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar and Science and Technology Minister Daniel Hershkowitz.
Netanyahu told Shechtman he hoped many more Israelis will follow in his foot steps and win Nobel prizes thanks to the government’s investment in education. He noted that the government has approved a NIS 7.5 billion (roughly $ 2 billion) increase for the Higher Education budget.


Nobel Laureate gives chemistry lesson to Israel PM

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Netanyahu meets with Israeli Nobel laureate, is given chemistry lesson

Dan Shechtman, who was awarded the 2011 Nobel in chemistry, explains discovery to Prime Minister, who promises larger investment in higher education.

Shechtman Netanyahu - GPO - October 6, 2011
Dan Shechtman explains his discovery to  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
October 6, 2011. Photo by: Amos Ben-Gershom / GPO

Blogged from Haaretz

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hosted Nobel Prize winner Dan Shechtman at his office on Thursday 6th October, 2011, and received a chemistry lesson from the Israeli.

At the meeting, Netanyahu asked Shechtman to teach him about the findings that earned him the 2011 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Using a blackboard, Shechtman drew a diagram of his discovery – quasicrystals – a chemical structure that researchers previously thought was impossible.

Netanyahu told Shechtman that because of his government’s investment in education, he can promise that many more Israelis will win the Nobel prize. Earlier on Thursday, Shechtman referred to the extensive government cuts to Israel’s higher education budget throughout the first decade of the twenty-first century, telling Israel Radio that “we felt humiliated as scientists.”

“It didn’t seem that the State of Israel saw any importance in our work, and that manifested itself in massive budget cuts,” Shechtman said, adding, however “that the educational system has taken recent steps, as opposed to previous periods which were very bad.”

Netanyahu said in the meeting that the government has added NIS 7.5 billion to the higher education budget.

The prize of 10 million Swedish crowns ($1.45 million) was the third of this year’s Nobel prizes, following awards for medicine on Monday and for physics on Tuesday.

Israel has an impressive showing when it comes to Nobel winners, with 10 laureates in its 63-year history. Most recently, Israeli scientist Ada Yonath of the Weizmann Institute won the same Nobel Prize for chemistry in 2009, for her work on the ribosomes. Three Israeli politicians have also won the Nobel Prize for peace – Menachem Begin in 1978, and Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin in 1994.

Nobel Laureate gives chemistry lesson to Israel PM

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Netanyahu meets with Israeli Nobel laureate, is given chemistry lesson

Dan Shechtman, who was awarded the 2011 Nobel in chemistry, explains discovery to Prime Minister, who promises larger investment in higher education.

Shechtman Netanyahu - GPO - October 6, 2011
Dan Shechtman explains his discovery to  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
October 6, 2011. Photo by: Amos Ben-Gershom / GPO

Blogged from Haaretz

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hosted Nobel Prize winner Dan Shechtman at his office on Thursday 6th October, 2011, and received a chemistry lesson from the Israeli.

At the meeting, Netanyahu asked Shechtman to teach him about the findings that earned him the 2011 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Using a blackboard, Shechtman drew a diagram of his discovery – quasicrystals – a chemical structure that researchers previously thought was impossible.

Netanyahu told Shechtman that because of his government’s investment in education, he can promise that many more Israelis will win the Nobel prize. Earlier on Thursday, Shechtman referred to the extensive government cuts to Israel’s higher education budget throughout the first decade of the twenty-first century, telling Israel Radio that “we felt humiliated as scientists.”

“It didn’t seem that the State of Israel saw any importance in our work, and that manifested itself in massive budget cuts,” Shechtman said, adding, however “that the educational system has taken recent steps, as opposed to previous periods which were very bad.”

Netanyahu said in the meeting that the government has added NIS 7.5 billion to the higher education budget.

The prize of 10 million Swedish crowns ($1.45 million) was the third of this year’s Nobel prizes, following awards for medicine on Monday and for physics on Tuesday.

Israel has an impressive showing when it comes to Nobel winners, with 10 laureates in its 63-year history. Most recently, Israeli scientist Ada Yonath of the Weizmann Institute won the same Nobel Prize for chemistry in 2009, for her work on the ribosomes. Three Israeli politicians have also won the Nobel Prize for peace – Menachem Begin in 1978, and Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin in 1994.

How to win a NOBEL Prize

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Technion’s 2004 Nobel Laureates Aaron Ciechanover & Avram Hershko


How to Win a Nobel Prize


On Wednesday Oct. 5, I frightened the daylights out of Miriam, with whom I share an office at the S. Neaman Institute.  Shortly after noon,  I opened my emails and read the subject line of one of them:  “Technion Materials Engineering Professor Dan Shechtman awarded Nobel Prize for Chemistry”.  I yelled, leaped out of my chair, spilling my coffee, and screamed “yes!”…  and then explained to Miriam that Danny had been a friend and colleague for over 25 years and that the tale of how he won his Nobel was worthy of a Hollywood feature film.  

Shechtman is the tenth Israeli to win a Nobel prize, the fifth Israeli to win one since 2002 and the third Technion scientist.  He has been short-listed for perhaps 20 years.  It is rather rare that a single scientist gets an unshared Nobel.   In each of the last three years, three scientists have shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. This year, Shechtman is the sole winner.

So, how do you win a Nobel Prize?  Here is how Danny did it.  The recipe has, I think, some valuable lessons for Israel’s science and technology policy, and perhaps that of other nations.  
  
1.  Read Jules Verne and dream.    “Frightful indeed was the situation of these unfortunate men. They were evidently no longer masters of the machine. All their attempts were useless. The case of the balloon collapsed more and more. The gas escaped without any possibility of retaining it. Their descent was visibly accelerated, and soon after midday the car hung within 600 feet of the ocean.” This passage is from the first chapter of Verne’s novel The Mysterious Island, which Shechtman says he read 25 times as a child. The book is about how an engineer turns a desert island into a lush garden. “I wanted to be exactly that: someone who makes everything from nothing”, he says. 

To win a Nobel Prize in physics, medicine or chemistry, you need to study science or engineering.  And to choose those disciplines, you need inspiration.  How can we inspire our youth to choose science, rather than business or law?  This is far more important than higher education budgets. Perhaps the story of what Shechtman saw in his microscope will help.   


One of Shechtman’s projects was to initiate a Hebrew translation of the popular science magazine Scientific American, now distributed widely to Israeli schools, with the goal of attracting young minds to study science.    

2.  Believe in yourself.  On April 8, 1982, Shechtman was peering into an electronic microscope at the labs of the National Bureau of Standards, during a sabbatical from Technion at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.  His mission was to find lightweight alloys for  aircraft.  Shechtman was looking at an alloy of aluminum and manganese that had been rapidly cooled and crystallized.  “Eyn chaya kazoo!” he exclaimed!  There can be no such creature! What he saw was an arrangement of atoms that defied the known laws of nature.  Everyone knew that atoms in a crystal are arranged with perfect symmetry.  What Shechtman saw was an arrangement of 10 dots, indicating “five-fold symmetry” – an arrangement in which the distances between some atoms are shorter than between others. (To understand why, try to tile your bathroom floor with five-sided tiles, without leaving spaces between the tiles. It cannot be done.)   He ran into the corridor to find someone to tell.  But the corridor was empty.  So he wrote in his lab diary, “10 fold???”  with three question marks.  Impossible.  After checking, and rechecking, Shechtman wrote up his results. His research team leader fired him from the team, after showing him a passage in a basic textbook and asking him to reread it.  His research paper was rejected for publication. He was vilified before a large audience by Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling, at a gathering Shechtman himself attended.  He was called a “quasi-scientist”, playing on the “quasi-crystal” matter he discovered. But he never gave up.  In the end, other scientists replicated and verified his findings and a new definition of “crystal” was adopted.    Shechtman has a favorite picture of a line of a dozen German Shepherds. In front of them, with perfect aplomb, walks a serene cat.   “I felt like that cat,” he recounts.  But he never yielded an inch from what he believed was scientific truth.  “A good scientist needs faith,” he told the daily Haaretz. “I believed in something and it was hard to break my spirit, despite all the hardships and criticism. Every scientist who wants to make a definitive contribution to humanity has to know that he’s right and stand his ground.”   As a Technion undergrad, Shechtman supported himself by odd jobs. During the 1965-66 recession he worked as an official in charge of road signs.  But as a scientist, he ignored the many red-light stop signs other scientists showed him.

3. Believe in Israel.  Shechtman had numerous opportunities to make a stellar career in America, but he chose to return home to Technion, where he did all three of his academic degrees.  “I’m a Zionist,” he says simply.  His grandparents came to Palestine as part of the Second Aliyah, around 1910.  

In the media blitz that followed the Nobel announcement, no journalist mentioned that Danny is a serial entrepreneur.  Until I retired, I co-chaired a popular Technion course with Shechtman, Technological Entrepreneurship, which he initiated, attended each Fall by several hundred students.  The idea was simple – inspire Technion undergrads to launch businesses by bringing successful Israeli entrepreneurs to tell their stories.  “No theories!” we counseled. “Just tell the students how you did it.” And indeed, students who took the course went on to launch businesses.  Shechtman himself has been involved with startups that made knives and kitchen utensils out of “Shechtmanite” (the quasi-crystalline material he discovered, which has special properties), and he is now working on a startup to make durable artificial joints out of magnesium alloys.  

4.  Challenge everything.   Israeli students and managers, even very young ones,  never hesitate to tell me how wrong I am, despite my 44 years of teaching and researching management. And I absolutely love and cherish the ensuing debate! This hutzpa is an integral part of Israeli culture.  I find much less of it in other countries.  Though Shechtman is impeccably polite and soft-spoken,  hutzpa is in part what drove him to challenge what every materials scientist knew as Gospel truth, and stick to his guns.   In international diplomacy,  Israeli stubbornness is castigated; in science, it wins Nobels. In global politics, Israeli hutzpah is condemned as arrogance; in science, it smashes icons.  

Shechtman told a Reshet Bet radio interviewer that the past decade has been humiliating for Israeli scientists, because massive budget cuts told them they were unimportant – a perverse message for a nation that lives on its brainpower. Some of those cuts have been restored.  I think Shechtman’s story of perseverance and courage will inspire a new generation of Israeli scientists, provided we give them the tools and resources they need to change the world and how it thinks.
     

* Senior research fellow, S. Neaman Institute, Technion.

How to win a NOBEL Prize

1 Comment

Technion’s 2004 Nobel Laureates Aaron Ciechanover & Avram Hershko


How to Win a Nobel Prize


On Wednesday Oct. 5, I frightened the daylights out of Miriam, with whom I share an office at the S. Neaman Institute.  Shortly after noon,  I opened my emails and read the subject line of one of them:  “Technion Materials Engineering Professor Dan Shechtman awarded Nobel Prize for Chemistry”.  I yelled, leaped out of my chair, spilling my coffee, and screamed “yes!”…  and then explained to Miriam that Danny had been a friend and colleague for over 25 years and that the tale of how he won his Nobel was worthy of a Hollywood feature film.  

Shechtman is the tenth Israeli to win a Nobel prize, the fifth Israeli to win one since 2002 and the third Technion scientist.  He has been short-listed for perhaps 20 years.  It is rather rare that a single scientist gets an unshared Nobel.   In each of the last three years, three scientists have shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. This year, Shechtman is the sole winner.

So, how do you win a Nobel Prize?  Here is how Danny did it.  The recipe has, I think, some valuable lessons for Israel’s science and technology policy, and perhaps that of other nations.  
  
1.  Read Jules Verne and dream.    “Frightful indeed was the situation of these unfortunate men. They were evidently no longer masters of the machine. All their attempts were useless. The case of the balloon collapsed more and more. The gas escaped without any possibility of retaining it. Their descent was visibly accelerated, and soon after midday the car hung within 600 feet of the ocean.” This passage is from the first chapter of Verne’s novel The Mysterious Island, which Shechtman says he read 25 times as a child. The book is about how an engineer turns a desert island into a lush garden. “I wanted to be exactly that: someone who makes everything from nothing”, he says. 

To win a Nobel Prize in physics, medicine or chemistry, you need to study science or engineering.  And to choose those disciplines, you need inspiration.  How can we inspire our youth to choose science, rather than business or law?  This is far more important than higher education budgets. Perhaps the story of what Shechtman saw in his microscope will help.   


One of Shechtman’s projects was to initiate a Hebrew translation of the popular science magazine Scientific American, now distributed widely to Israeli schools, with the goal of attracting young minds to study science.    

2.  Believe in yourself.  On April 8, 1982, Shechtman was peering into an electronic microscope at the labs of the National Bureau of Standards, during a sabbatical from Technion at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.  His mission was to find lightweight alloys for  aircraft.  Shechtman was looking at an alloy of aluminum and manganese that had been rapidly cooled and crystallized.  “Eyn chaya kazoo!” he exclaimed!  There can be no such creature! What he saw was an arrangement of atoms that defied the known laws of nature.  Everyone knew that atoms in a crystal are arranged with perfect symmetry.  What Shechtman saw was an arrangement of 10 dots, indicating “five-fold symmetry” – an arrangement in which the distances between some atoms are shorter than between others. (To understand why, try to tile your bathroom floor with five-sided tiles, without leaving spaces between the tiles. It cannot be done.)   He ran into the corridor to find someone to tell.  But the corridor was empty.  So he wrote in his lab diary, “10 fold???”  with three question marks.  Impossible.  After checking, and rechecking, Shechtman wrote up his results. His research team leader fired him from the team, after showing him a passage in a basic textbook and asking him to reread it.  His research paper was rejected for publication. He was vilified before a large audience by Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling, at a gathering Shechtman himself attended.  He was called a “quasi-scientist”, playing on the “quasi-crystal” matter he discovered. But he never gave up.  In the end, other scientists replicated and verified his findings and a new definition of “crystal” was adopted.    Shechtman has a favorite picture of a line of a dozen German Shepherds. In front of them, with perfect aplomb, walks a serene cat.   “I felt like that cat,” he recounts.  But he never yielded an inch from what he believed was scientific truth.  “A good scientist needs faith,” he told the daily Haaretz. “I believed in something and it was hard to break my spirit, despite all the hardships and criticism. Every scientist who wants to make a definitive contribution to humanity has to know that he’s right and stand his ground.”   As a Technion undergrad, Shechtman supported himself by odd jobs. During the 1965-66 recession he worked as an official in charge of road signs.  But as a scientist, he ignored the many red-light stop signs other scientists showed him.

3. Believe in Israel.  Shechtman had numerous opportunities to make a stellar career in America, but he chose to return home to Technion, where he did all three of his academic degrees.  “I’m a Zionist,” he says simply.  His grandparents came to Palestine as part of the Second Aliyah, around 1910.  

In the media blitz that followed the Nobel announcement, no journalist mentioned that Danny is a serial entrepreneur.  Until I retired, I co-chaired a popular Technion course with Shechtman, Technological Entrepreneurship, which he initiated, attended each Fall by several hundred students.  The idea was simple – inspire Technion undergrads to launch businesses by bringing successful Israeli entrepreneurs to tell their stories.  “No theories!” we counseled. “Just tell the students how you did it.” And indeed, students who took the course went on to launch businesses.  Shechtman himself has been involved with startups that made knives and kitchen utensils out of “Shechtmanite” (the quasi-crystalline material he discovered, which has special properties), and he is now working on a startup to make durable artificial joints out of magnesium alloys.  

4.  Challenge everything.   Israeli students and managers, even very young ones,  never hesitate to tell me how wrong I am, despite my 44 years of teaching and researching management. And I absolutely love and cherish the ensuing debate! This hutzpa is an integral part of Israeli culture.  I find much less of it in other countries.  Though Shechtman is impeccably polite and soft-spoken,  hutzpa is in part what drove him to challenge what every materials scientist knew as Gospel truth, and stick to his guns.   In international diplomacy,  Israeli stubbornness is castigated; in science, it wins Nobels. In global politics, Israeli hutzpah is condemned as arrogance; in science, it smashes icons.  

Shechtman told a Reshet Bet radio interviewer that the past decade has been humiliating for Israeli scientists, because massive budget cuts told them they were unimportant – a perverse message for a nation that lives on its brainpower. Some of those cuts have been restored.  I think Shechtman’s story of perseverance and courage will inspire a new generation of Israeli scientists, provided we give them the tools and resources they need to change the world and how it thinks.
     

* Senior research fellow, S. Neaman Institute, Technion.

World Media links on 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

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Anglo:

BusinessWeek (syndicated article also published by Forbes)
Israeli wins chemistry Nobel for quasicrystals

CBS News
Nobel in chemistry goes to Israeli

Chicago Tribune
Photos: Ridiculed crystal work wins Nobel for Israeli

Christian Science Monitor
Winner of Nobel Prize in Chemistry revolutionized study of crystals

CNN
Nobel goes to scientist who knocked down ‘Berlin Wall’ of chemistry

Financial Times
Nobel Prize for quasicrystals discovery

Los Angeles Times (syndicated article also published by the Denver Post, and others)
Israeli Wins Nobel for Chemistry

MSNBC (syndicated article also published by San Francisco Chronicle, ABC News, Atlanta Journal Constitution, and others)
Vindicated: Ridiculed Israeli scientist wins Nobel

National Geographic
Photos: Life-Changing Nobel Chemistry Breakthroughs

National Public Radio
Nobel-Winning Chemist Fought Hard For Acceptance

National Public Radio
Israeli Wins Nobel Chemistry Prize for Quasicrystals

New York Times (syndicated article also published by Economic Times, and others)
Israeli scientist Daniel Shechtman wins Nobel Prize in Chemistry for crystal discovery

PBS Newshour
What are Quasicrystals, and What Makes Them Nobel-Worthy?

Wall Street Journal
Crystal-Patterns Finding Nets Nobel

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15181187

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/israel-s-daniel-shechtman-wins-2011-nobel-prize-in-chemistry-1.388301


 

German

Ynet (European Jewish Paper): http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4131905,00.html (6.10.11)


TV:

Broadcast:

http://247.libero.it/focus/19516486/5/nobel-per-la-chimica-a-schechtman-per-scoperte-su-struttura-della-materia/
http://www.corriereadriatico.it/ANSAviewnews.php?file=newsANSA/2011-10-06_106672613.txt
http://www.vivicool.it/18537/cronaca/il-chimico-daniel-schechtman-ha-ottenuto-il-premio-nobel.html
http://it.euronews.net/2011/10/05/il-nobel-per-la-chimica-all-israeliano-schechtman/
http://www.vita.it/news/view/114190
http://www.repubblica.it/scienze/2011/10/05/news/chimica_il_nobel_a_shechtman-22729651/index.html
http://www3.lastampa.it/esteri/sezioni/articolo/lstp/423468/
http://www.corriere.it/scienze_e_tecnologie/11_ottobre_05/nobel-chimica_b2effa54-ef37-11e0-a7cb-38398ded3a54.shtml
http://www.ilmessaggero.it/articolo.php?id=165421&sez=HOME_SCIENZA
http://www.iltempo.it/interni_esteri/2011/10/05/1290729-nobel_chimica_daniel_shechtman.shtml
http://www.ilquotidianoitaliano.it/scienze-e-tecnologie/2011/10/news/nobel-per-la-chimica-premiato-lisraeliano-shechtman-117113.html/
http://www.gdp.ch/ats_news.php?id=43508 (Swiss but published in Italian)
http://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/tecnologie/2011-10-05/nobel-chimica-israeliano-shechtman-123927.shtml?uuid=AaLOTCAE
http://www.rainews24.rai.it/it/news.php?newsid=157097

World Media links on 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Leave a comment

Anglo:

BusinessWeek (syndicated article also published by Forbes)
Israeli wins chemistry Nobel for quasicrystals

CBS News
Nobel in chemistry goes to Israeli

Chicago Tribune
Photos: Ridiculed crystal work wins Nobel for Israeli

Christian Science Monitor
Winner of Nobel Prize in Chemistry revolutionized study of crystals

CNN
Nobel goes to scientist who knocked down ‘Berlin Wall’ of chemistry

Financial Times
Nobel Prize for quasicrystals discovery

Los Angeles Times (syndicated article also published by the Denver Post, and others)
Israeli Wins Nobel for Chemistry

MSNBC (syndicated article also published by San Francisco Chronicle, ABC News, Atlanta Journal Constitution, and others)
Vindicated: Ridiculed Israeli scientist wins Nobel

National Geographic
Photos: Life-Changing Nobel Chemistry Breakthroughs

National Public Radio
Nobel-Winning Chemist Fought Hard For Acceptance

National Public Radio
Israeli Wins Nobel Chemistry Prize for Quasicrystals

New York Times (syndicated article also published by Economic Times, and others)
Israeli scientist Daniel Shechtman wins Nobel Prize in Chemistry for crystal discovery

PBS Newshour
What are Quasicrystals, and What Makes Them Nobel-Worthy?

Wall Street Journal
Crystal-Patterns Finding Nets Nobel

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15181187

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/israel-s-daniel-shechtman-wins-2011-nobel-prize-in-chemistry-1.388301


 

German

Ynet (European Jewish Paper): http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4131905,00.html (6.10.11)


TV:

Broadcast:

http://247.libero.it/focus/19516486/5/nobel-per-la-chimica-a-schechtman-per-scoperte-su-struttura-della-materia/
http://www.corriereadriatico.it/ANSAviewnews.php?file=newsANSA/2011-10-06_106672613.txt
http://www.vivicool.it/18537/cronaca/il-chimico-daniel-schechtman-ha-ottenuto-il-premio-nobel.html
http://it.euronews.net/2011/10/05/il-nobel-per-la-chimica-all-israeliano-schechtman/
http://www.vita.it/news/view/114190
http://www.repubblica.it/scienze/2011/10/05/news/chimica_il_nobel_a_shechtman-22729651/index.html
http://www3.lastampa.it/esteri/sezioni/articolo/lstp/423468/
http://www.corriere.it/scienze_e_tecnologie/11_ottobre_05/nobel-chimica_b2effa54-ef37-11e0-a7cb-38398ded3a54.shtml
http://www.ilmessaggero.it/articolo.php?id=165421&sez=HOME_SCIENZA
http://www.iltempo.it/interni_esteri/2011/10/05/1290729-nobel_chimica_daniel_shechtman.shtml
http://www.ilquotidianoitaliano.it/scienze-e-tecnologie/2011/10/news/nobel-per-la-chimica-premiato-lisraeliano-shechtman-117113.html/
http://www.gdp.ch/ats_news.php?id=43508 (Swiss but published in Italian)
http://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/tecnologie/2011-10-05/nobel-chimica-israeliano-shechtman-123927.shtml?uuid=AaLOTCAE
http://www.rainews24.rai.it/it/news.php?newsid=157097

What they’re saying about Nobel Laureate Dan Shechtman

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Technion Nobel Laureate (Chemistry 2004) shares his experience
with his colleague Shechtman, Nobel Laureate (Chemistry, 2011)



“I salute you, you gave the people of Israel a wonderful gift. This is a great day for Haifa, a great day for the Technion.”

President of the State of Israel Shimon Peres

“It’s been an honor to congratulate him today and I look forward to working more with the Technion in the future.”

Swedish Ambassador to Israel Elinor Hammarskjöld 


“I would like to congratulate you, on behalf of the citizens of Israel, for your award, which expresses the intellect of our people. Every Israeli is happy today and every Jew in the world is proud. I also congratulated your institution, the Technion, on the centenary of its founding.”



Prime Minister of the State of Israel Benyamin Netanyahu


“Congratulations from your your granddaughter’s school in California….our class is so proud of you for your research and findings.”
KIM PRESCOTT, TEACHER



From the Scientists


“Dan Shechtman comes along and proves us all wrong. It’s the next step in crystallography. It is outrageous. It is fantastic. Before Dr. Shechtman’s discovery, this was thought impossible. It absolutely deserves the Nobel.” 


Peter Mueller, MIT

“Dan is a very careful experimentalist and what he did, he did right. He violated a dogma of crystallography – at that time some 200 years old – and nevertheless defended it”.

Prof. Knut Urban, professor of experimental physics at RWTH Aachen University, Germany


“Dan spent two years convincing everybody  about his discovery. This is a revolution in physics, in crystallography.”


Prof. An-Pang Tsai, Tohuku University, Japan,

“I had more or less the same alloys as Shechtman at the same time, but I did not recognize them to be quasicrystals.”


Prof. Jean-Marie Dubois, CNRS—French National Center for Scientific Research,


“It is not always enough to make the discovery, you have to fight and advocate on its behalf…without Danny’s patience, stubbornness, and tenacity it would have been much more challenging.”


Prof. Peretz Lavie, Technion president:

“It became clear that an old paradigm had crashed and a new one was emerging.”


Prof. Marjorie Senechal, mathematical crystallographer at Smith College, Massachusetts

“Dan Shechtman is a real teacher and mentor and role model in the faculty.”


Dr Boaz Pokroy, Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Materials Engineering

“Danny Shechtman made a very important discovery. I think this discovery is an excellent example for which a Nobel Prize should be given.”


Prof. István Hargittai, Budapest University of Technology and Economics

“There is a community of international scientists who couldn’t communicate with each other before the discovery of quasicrystals and now speak the language of quasiperiodicity.”


Distinguished Prof. Dan Shechtman

 “There is no such thing as quasicrystals, only quasi-scientists.”


Linus Pauling, Nobel laureate.