Ahmed Zewail and his most important achievements
Table of contents
Early life and education of Ahmed Zewail
- The scientist “Ahmed Hassan Zewail” was born in Damanhour, a city in Beheira Governorate, Arab Republic of Egypt, on February 26, 1946 AD.
- At the age of four, he moved with his family to Desouk in Kafr El Sheikh Governorate, and there he completed his primary, elementary and secondary education.
- Then, he joined the Faculty of Science at Alexandria University, in 1967 he obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry, with honors, which qualified him to work as a lecturer at the faculty.
- While working as a lecturer in his college, he obtained a master’s degree for the research “Optics (Light)”.
- After that, he traveled to the United States of America on a scholarship, and there he obtained a PhD in “Laser Science” from the University of Pennsylvania, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
- He worked in the University of California as a researcher between 1974 and 1976.
- Then, he worked in the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) from 1976 and had run successfully there until he served as chief professor of chemistry.
- Ahmed Zewail attained U.S. citizenship in 1982 AD.
- In 1999 AD, Ahmed Zewail was awarded the Nobel Prize in his area of search “Femtochemistry”, and he was the first Egyptian Arab to receive the Nobel Prize in the field of chemistry.
Ahmed Zewail was awarded the noble prize
- The Egyptian scientist Ahmed Zewail conducted research, which led him to invent a camera capable of analyzing the femtosecond spectrum.
- Femtosecond: A unit of time equal to one millionth of a billionth of a second.
- These researches also laid the foundations of femtosecond chemistry.
- This invention was a revolution in the field of chemistry, as they were able to follow the movement of atoms with molecules during chemical reactions (by means of high-speed laser technology) at a femtosecond speed.
- On October 21, 1999, the Egyptian-American scientist, “Ahmed Zewail” won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, thus becoming the first Egyptian Arab to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Ahmed Zewail’s most important works
- The invention of the camera capable of analyzing the femtosecond spectrum.
- He has published about 350 research papers in various fields.
- Ahmed Zewail has authored more than sixteen books.
- He wrote about six hundred scientific articles.
- He founded Zewail City of Science and Technology.
Books published by the scientist Ahmed Zewail
- Age of Science (tells the story of Zewail’s life, his travels, his own experience in science, and his view of the world), 2005.
- Voyage Through Time (the book details Zewail’s life with his family from a young age, and the path he went through until he was awarded the Nobel Prize), “2005”.
- Dialogue of Civilizations, “2007”.
- Time (the book explains the history and measurement of time as a fourth dimension), “2007”.
Awards won by the scientist “Ahmed Zewail”
The Egyptian-American scientist received many awards, about 31, for his research, which revolutionized the field of femtoseconds and the field of lasers, among these awards:
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry “1999”.
- Max Planck Prize in Germany.
- Medal of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
- Sultan Qaboos Prize in Science and Physics from the Sultanate of Oman “1989”.
- King Faisal International Prize in Science.
- Ahmed Zewail received honorary doctorates from the University of Alexandria, the American University in Cairo, and the University of Oxford.
- US Department of Energy Award in Chemistry.
- Order of Merit, First Class, from Mohamed Hosni Mubarak, 1995.
The death of the scientist
- Dr. Ahmed Zewail suffered from cancer in the spinal cord, until he died on August 2, 2016, aged 70. On August 7, a military funeral was held for him, attended by the leaders of Egypt and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.
