Nobel Laureate Albert Einstein used to play violin in a string quartet with historic Technion architect and faculty member Prof. Alexander Baerwald. In the recession after WW1, dreams of making the Technion a functioning reality were slim, and Einstein was invited to come visit the waiting buildings designed by his friend and to advise on the dream of opening a technical institute in Haifa. On that day, the Nobel Laureate and his wife planted two trees to mark the occasion. On his return to Berlin, Einstein would open and chair the world’s first Technion society – the initiation of an apparatus that would generate a century of progress, teaching and expansion as the decade by decade, the Technion could anticpate and meet the needs of a fledgling nation.

On the 100th anniversary of the Technion’s first cornerstone, Technion’s Prof. Dan Shechtman was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. He is today Technion’s third Nobel Laureate, joining Prof. Avraham Hershko and Aaron Ciechanover. All three of them follow the spirit of scientific integrity and excellence in pure research displayed by founding father Albert Einstein, to whom the Technion owes so much. Scroll down to absorb a little of the Technion’s Nobel legacy.

Dan Shechtman discovered the Icosahedral Phase in 1982. It is the first structure in the field of quasi-periodic crystals, and was discovered in aluminum transition metal alloys.

He instigated the course Technological Entrepreneurship in 1986, referring to it as “my baby,” and has overseen it annually ever since.  The course is offered in the winter semester each year and comprises 14 guest lectures, some of which are inspirational talks delivered by successful Israeli entrepreneurs. Shechtman is invited to lecture worldwide about the Technological Entrepreneurship course, arousing much interest. He considers himself a missionary, “I coordinate the course with pleasure. I do it for Israel.”


“This is the Israeli spirit. Sometimes this leads to chaos; but free thinking encourages successful scientists. We are living here in a free society… many of us do not follow the rules, and this is part of the national character of a free-thinking people.”


Between 2001 and 2004, Shechtman served as chairperson of the sciences division, Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Now as a member, he continues to oversee the translation of the Nobel Prize scientific posters into Hebrew, and their annual distributes to schools throughout the country.

Shechtman has been voted as an outstanding lecturer by his students at the Technion for ten years consecutively. He is married and lives in Haifa. He has four children and nine grandchildren.

Shechtman with his family after the spontaneous press meeting at Technion (Oct. 5th, 2011).

1941
Shechtman is born.

Maimonides (attributed)

The Nobel Committee at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

 

 

Shechtman’s findings demonstrated a clear diffraction pattern with a fivefold symmetry. The pattern was recorded from an aluminum-manganese (Al-Mn) alloy which had been rapidly cooled after melting. Quasicrystals’ structure can be understood through the mathematical theory of tiling.

In August 1986, David R. Nelson wrote in Scientific American, “Shechtmanite quasicrystals are no mere curiosity. The study of quasicrystals has tied together two existing branches of theory: the theory of metallic glasses and the mathematical theory of aperiodic tilings. In doing so it has brought new and powerful tools to bear on the study of metallic alloys. Questions about long- and short-range icosahedral order should occupy solid-state physicists and materials scientists for some time to come.”

Today, hundreds of materials are known to exist with the structure that Dan Shechtman discovered. Every year, a number of national and international conferences are held on this subject.

Over 40 scientific books have been dedicated to Shechtmanite, or quasiperiodic crystals, and in many other books, the chapters dealing with crystallography have been updated. In wake of the discovery and its proof, the International Society of Crystallographers has changed its basic definition of a crystal, reducing it to the ability to produce a clear-cut diffraction pattern and acknowledging the possibility of the crystallographic order to be either periodic or aperiodic.

Although he is a graduate student in civil engineering, Erez Horev heard of the competition at the Technion Autonomous Systems Program and seized the moment. For months in his spare time he had been working on his Maglev car, and although his supervisor saw it as “too futuristic” for a full-time research project, Horev (like his name-sake former Technion President and global leader in engineering Amos Horev), he doesn’t give up.

The first prize, won together with another project in which a toolbox follows it’s owner around, won the attention of Israel’s national media. The idea first came to Horev when he was working on Israel’s new fast pay-road Highway 6, and later on the new light rail project in Haifa. The car operates normally but has six magnets attached to underside. When it enters the magnetic highway, the system is activated. “With this system, you could live in Italy and work n Germany and commute the whole distance in 50 minutes,” says Horev. “The car will go at 400 mph and the driver can go to sleep.”

In ordinary vehicles, 99% of the energy is used to overcome the friction between the wheels and the road. In the Maglev car, the friction is so minimal that it would lead to enormous savings in fuel. The system  simulates a magnetic toll road for private vehicles. “Because of the high speeds that can reach them using this technology, the project could compete not only with existing toll roads, but even with domestic flights and trains,” says Horev.

“At the Technion, studies are always multidisciplinary. Although I study civil engineering, we also delve into physics, mathematics, organic chemistry. Studying at the Technion has made me realize I can learn and create almost anything.”

One can’t help think about Technion graduate Shai Agassi who presently launching his exemplary electric car system and infrastructure in Israel through his global company Better Place. A man who dares to dream and has the practical penchant for problem-solving and determination to see a project through, Horev admits that Agassi is in himself a template for Technion students.

“Every day is a new day,” he smiles, “Today, there is little research in the field of maglev. It is seen as too futuristic. But I will go on implementing the idea in my space time. I want to address a huge demand for governments and companies to invest in research and development of new transportation methods and efficiency, since citizens are tired of spending more than two hours in endless traffic jams. This issue is close to my heart, and I’m going to go with it to the end.”

As part of Technion’s traditional “Technbrain” competition, students will compete against each other by releasing the world’s longest yo-yo from a 30 meter high crane. The yo-yo will have to run back up a 20 meter long rope, to its maximum height and then drop down again and run up a number of times to a minimum of over 5 meters. A team of judges will measure the maximum height the yo-yo reaches on its first ascent after release from the crane and the number of times it loops up and down.

The crane will have a compartment in which the yo-yo will be placed. The compartment’s floor will open and the yo-yo will be released downward. Competitors are not allowed to use an external energy source and the dynamic rope will be supplied to them by the competition organizers. Winners will receive 10,000 ₪, 5,000 ₪, and 3,000 ₪ (1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd places, respectively).

The “Technbrain” competition is held at the Technion in memory of Neev-Ya Durban, who first envisioned and thereafter established the competition, and was a student and outstanding Technion graduate. Neev-Ya was an officer in the IDF when he was murdered during a mugging on a quiet street in Tel Aviv in March 2003. The competition and the prizes are funded by Dr. Robert Shillman (who everyone knows as “Dr. Bob”), who did his graduate work at the Technion.

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Technion graduate of physics, Japanese student Shumon Mori.

In the aftermath of the terrible earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis unfolding in Japan this month, Technion reached out to find out how Mori, one of many graduates from Japan is doing.

“Thanks for your care,” said Mori,  “Your consideration from Technion keeps us strong. Myself, my family and colleagues are fine. But the damage to the North of Japan is like a nightmare. It is unbelievable. We, and all Japanese are trying to be strong to overcome this crisis.”

“In Japan, nature has shown us how truly powerful it is, unfortunately, with devastating effects,” said Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie, at the Technion’s Harvey Prize Ceremony. “I send my sincere hopes that recovery will come swiftly and as painlessly as possible.”

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It was his father’s struggle with deep depression over business troubles in 1957 that changed the course of Prof. Moussa Youdim’s life, from studying medicine to going into pharmacology. He sought a more refined, and merciful understanding of brain chemistry that would help bring treatment and relief to millions.
Prof. Youdim is today internationally renowned for his brain research and drug development in depressive illness and Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. He has established the importance of monoamine oxidase and brain iron metabolism for brain function that can lead to cognitive impairments and neurodegenerative diseases.

 

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Where internet began.

“They unequivocally bear the stamp of the present century.” BBVA Foundation President, Francisco Gonzále, at the Frontiers of Knowledge Awards, 2009.

The Lempel-Ziv algorithm – the mathematical formula for compressing vast amounts of information – is the thought power that enabled the high-tech communications revolution of our generation.
From the birth of the internet, through to the global broadcasting of live images from Mars, we are indebted to the science behind compression and decompression made possible by the legendary Technion algorithm in 1983.
Tiberius-born Prof. Jacob Ziv and Poland-born Prof. Abraham Lempel changed the direction of mankind by bringing the best compression ratio ever. This became the standard utility in unix systems, the gif image format, tiff, pdf and adobe acrobat software.
Generations of Technion graduates mentored by the two pioneering professors, adopted not only the knowledge, but also the spirit of innovation, empowering the high-tech revolution, in Israel and across the globe.

 

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Light Man 2020

“Technion is the place I chose to do this research.” Distinguished Prof. Moti Segev

What is light? How is it composed? How to unravel the secrets of a soliton – a single wave packet of light? What wonders of technology and science can be achieved when we master its power?
Distinguished Prof.Mordechai (Moti) Segev was raised in Haifa to a poor immigrant family of shoemakers. But little Moti had a secret – the secret of what happens when you excel beyond all frontiers.
Years later – as the first Israeli to be offered a tenured position in Princeton in 1998 – Segev chose to return to Technion and to create there a focus of optics research alluring excellent students and faculty from across the world. Some proofs of his global success include  the world’s first observation of 2D lattice solitons, and the first experimental demonstration of Anderson localization in a disordered periodic system.

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A Matter of Class

“If you believe in your research then fight for it. Fight for the truth.” Distinguished Prof. Dan Shechtman.

Since 1912, matter – the miracle of everything in our world – was defined by scientists with a strict paradigm: crystals are ordered and periodic  – with no exception. That was before Israeli-born Distinguished Prof. Dan Shechtman reached for the electron microsope in 1982 – the year humanity’s perception of matter was changed forever.
Shechtman broke all the rules when he revealed a new class of matter – “Shechtmanite” – crystals with 5-fold rotation symmetry. “I was alone. I was ridiculed by my colleagues and my peers,” tells Shechtman, who stood by his revolutionary research into quasi-periodic crystals despite the disgrace it brought him among international scientists.
The new strength of material made available through quasi-periodic crystals has today converted the world,  opening a range of applications in super-strong steel – especially where it contacts the human body, such as in surgical equipment.

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Multi-tasking Stem Cells

“Everyone knows about the Technion…”Prof. Shulamit Levenberg

One of seven sisters in a religious family, no-one could foresee that Prof. Shulamit Levenberg would change the course of global science. Yet, when she revealed a breakthrough process to create living human tissue in the lab – she opened a new dimension of promise in medical research – that could eventually culminate in a medical ability to cultivate and replace damaged organs in the body.

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The Imagineer

“Technion is a holistic experience.” Technion Alum Shai Agassi

Proud Technion alum Shai Agassi wants to put you behind the wheel of an electric car — but he doesn’t want you to sacrifice convenience (or cash) to do it.
When horrific climate-change scenarios elicit little but endless chatter from governments and entrenched special interests, the difference between talk and action represent an embarrassing gulf. Meet exemplary Technion alum Shai Agassi, who has stepped fearlessly into that gap. His approach to solving the puzzle of electric automobiles could spark nothing short of an automotive revolution.
Agassi stunned the software industry in 2007 by resigning from SAP to focus on his vision for breaking the world’s fossil-fuel habit, through his global start-up Project Better Place. Recently he signed up to make San Francisco the EV capital of the US – with a revolutionary switchable battery electric taxi program.

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The Kiss of Life

“Mentorship is as important as science.” Nobel Laureate Avram Hershko

Ubiquitin: so called, because it is a protein present in all living cells. No-one knew why it was there, and no-one dared to wonder: it was just boring – “ubiquitous”.
But no living secrets are untouched by Technion scientists. Throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s, Distinguished Professors Avram Hershko and Aaron Ciechanover unveiled the mysteries of  the ubiquitin system, revealing the masterkeys of human health. The ubiquitous protein ubiquitin, they showed, is the key factor in deciding when and how a cell should regenerate. Imbalance in ubiquitin reveals itself in some of the world’s most incurable afflictions – such as cancer and neuro-degenerative disorders.
By 2004, the Technion research was already revolutionizing medical understanding and opening the way to innovative cures and treatments. No wonder that, in that year, the two Technion Professors became Israel’s first Nobel Laureates in science.

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Sniffing Out Cancer

“I am where I feel that I contribute the most.” Dr. Hossam Haick

When Dr. Hossam Haick was studying for his doctorate, a friend of his was diagnosed with leukemia. “It was very painful for me. I saw his suffering. That was the first time I began to think about diagnosing cancer by means of oxygenating substances that are excreted in a photocatalytic procedure (accelerated by light ) and come into contact with cancer cells. Nazareth-born Haick has since amazed the world with an ingenious system for detecting cancer via breath tests.
Haick’s patented “electronic nose” promises to detect several types of cancer in their early stages. His goal is to detect cancer early enough  to give the human body a better chance of beating the disease.

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9/11 Never again

“At critical moments in an emergency, there is no time.” Security expert Prof. Avi Kirschenbaum.

A decate later and the trauma is fresh. And the global threat is still there. Post 9/11, everyone wants to know they are safe on a plane.  
High-tech security innovation has always been quietly high on the scientific agenda of Israel’s top institute of technology, but recently world headlines showed another aspect of Technion expertise – people management in a crisis.
“At critical moments in an emergency, there is no time to consult a supervisor or read the manual,” says Prof. Avi Kirschenbaum, whose decades of expertise in home-front security recently won his team a $5 million grant by the European Union to ensure airport against hostile threats. “In order to prevent disasters and deal with them properly, we have to ensure that all the teams, and not just security teams, will be trained and highly motivated.”

 

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Upwardly Motile

“For interdisciplinary science, Technion is an excellent place.”  Prof. Kinneret Keren

Named one of the 100 top young innovators by MIT’s Technology Review Magazine, Dr. Kinneret Keren is researching nature’s genius in self-assembly. On one hand this can be used  in the creation of nano-scale electronics; on the other, it brings a  wealth of understanding to  medical science – understanding  a cell’s motility – or how it  moves through space and time can provide the master-keys for healing such diseases as cancer or heart disease.
Keren integrates physics and cell biology in her research, moving between real and artificial cells. “The biophysical aspects of cell biology have been neglected in many areas,” she explains: “Basic cellular processes are highly relevant to understanding normal processes and diseases, for example, understanding how and why cells move faster brings a chance to better understand how cancer spreads.”

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And no-one should ignore the most amazing part of Technion….