Israeli Nobelist Dan Schechtman advises aspiring scientists to keep an observing eye.
Professor Dan Shechtman of the Technion-Israel Institute for Technology won the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of Quasi-Crystals, an ordered crystal structure that is not periodic.
Initially, Shechtman received severe criticism for presenting a phenomenon that seemed impossible, but his ability to see beyond the ordinary resulted in a groundbreaking scientific discovery.
Shechtman’s advice to aspiring scientists is to “look for something that seems impossible” and to pay attention to the small details.
As important as this advice may be, the video is interesting not only to students of science, as he discusses childhood experiences that piqued his interest in scientific analysis, the challenges he faced from naysayers and his enthusiasm that never waned.