Ahmed Zewail Facts
Ahmed Zewail Facts
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| Interesting Ahmed Zewail Facts: |
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| Ahmed Zewail was born in Damanhour, Egypt, the son of a bicycle assembler. |
| He was educated through college at Alexandria University and received two degrees in chemistry before moving to the US to complete his doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania. |
| Zewail went on to complete a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of California-Berkley before accepting a professorship at the California Institute of Technology in 1976. |
| Zewail was honored in 1990 as the first Linus Pauling Chair in Chemical Physics, and later was appointed to the President's science advisory committee, the Presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), under President Barak Obama. |
| His pioneering work in the newly created field of femtochemistry has led to multiple prestigious honors. |
| Femtochemistry addresses the observance of chemical reactions that occur at an unprecedented rate of speed, as one femto is one quadrillionth of a second, or 10-15. |
| Femtochemistry is especially useful in observing things like rates of radioactive decay in which elements have incredibly brief half-lives. |
| Zewail had to first create a high-speed laser that could function at the intersection of the molecular life of the subject sample. |
| This supersonic laser makes it possible to observe the chemical reactions that happen at these rates of speed. |
| For his groundbreaking work, Zewail has been awarded multiple honorary doctorates from universities around the world. |
| President Barak Obama sought Zewail's input in a new initiative to bridge the West and Islamic countries, naming Zewail as one of the first three Science Envoys to travel as ambassadors to centers of science throughout the Muslim countries. |
| Despite having become a naturalized US citizen and repeatedly stating that he has no desire to enter into politics, Zewail returned to Egypt in 2011 to be a part of a committee working towards constitutional reform. |
| During this time, he served as a highly respected intermediary between the new presidential administration and the military regime. |
| Earlier this year, he entered into court proceedings with Nile University over a land dispute between the university and his own Zewail City for Science and Technology. |
| Despite his status as a US citizen, he was awarded the highest honor an Egyptian citizen can receive from the state, the Grand Collar of the Nile. |
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