QUORA: When was the last time 98% of scientists got something really important wrong?

answered by Aravind Baby, PhD student at UIUC, BS and MS (IISc), KVPY SA Scholar, Jan 27
Not 98%, but almost 100% of the scientists in the world got this one wrong.
And it was not even half a century ago.
In 1982, Dr. Dan Shechtman was investigating aluminum-iron and aluminum-manganese alloys for a research program sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Aluminum and manganese were mixed in a proportion of 6:1, heated, and then rapidly
cooled to form metallic crystals. As was the norm in those times, the most advanced electron microscopic characterizations were performed on the alloy.

But what Shechtman saw under the microscope changed his life forever.

The alloy displayed a five-fold symmetry; that is, rotating it by 72° (360°/5) reproduced the same structure. This was considered impossible in crystals since it could not provide the basis of a repeating, regular structure and could not generate a
space-filling model.

It had an aperiodic structure.

Mind you, the types of crystal structures possible had been considered a closed subject since the 1890s. And almost a hundred years since, a fresh postdoctoral scholar had the guts and spine to question a theory fundamental to the vast science of
crystallography.

Shechtman, however, stood by his findings. The repercussions were huge. He was asked to leave his research group at the National Bureau of Standards and though he finally got to publish his observed results two years later, large cohorts of X-ray
crystallographers still considered it blasphemy.

Meanwhile, while American physicist Paul Steinhardt and Israeli physicist Dov Levine coined the term quasicrystal to describe Shechtman’s discovery, famous American chemist and two-time Nobel laureate, Linus Pauling, was quick to react.

“There are no quasicrystals, only quasi-scientists.”

However, in 1987, two groups in Japan and France made quasicrystals large enough to be examined via X-rays. Guess what they found…

A five-fold symmetry.

Hence, the definition of a crystal had to be altered. It no longer needed to be a periodically repeating, space-filling structure, as the existence of mathematical regularity alone was sufficient for nature.

The quasicrystal was hence born and has continued fascinating scientists around the world ever since.

Fast forward 25 years, Dan Shechtman was himself awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In his acceptance speech, he highlighted that his discovery “has given us a reminder of how little we really know and perhaps even taught us some humility.”

A wonderful lesson to all of mankind!
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COMMENTS
Joel Falk · Jan 28
I'm glad he lived long enough to be redeemed.
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Aravind Baby · Jan 28
Yes! Having observed how science works, he should be considered very lucky! --------
Lloyd Shaw · Jan 28
Quite often “science” is not the problem. It is often the scientist’s egos or outright unethical behavior that holds science back.

I have seen academic bullying up close and personal. And I can say it is rare to find any researcher who actually likes progress if it means change. They are essentially anti-science in their very behavior.
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Ozgur Zeren · Jan 28
re: "Quite often “science” is not the problem"
Scientific establishment, which evolved from scholastic monastic & church roots, which therefore still keeps its conservative traits, is…
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Francis Murphy · May 31
Actual science is not the problem, after all it’s basically about observing what’s before you and uses it to rebuts or reinforces a theory. However people, institutions and traditions, these can sometime be in the way of a good science.

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