From a beginning in an Egyptian Delta town and the port of Alexandria to the scenic vistas of sunny southern California, Ahmed Zewail takes us on a voyage through time his own life and the split-second world of the femtosecond. In this engaging exposé of his life and work until his receipt of the Nobel Prize in 1999, Zewail explores in non-technical language the landscape of molecules glimpsed on the scale of one quadrillionth of a second: the femtosecond, 0. 000 000 000 000 001 second. Zewail enriches the journey into the strange territory of femtochemistry with insightful analogies and illustrations to aid both the general reader and the scientifically inclined. He likewise draws lessons from his life story so far, and he meditates on the impact the revolution in science has had on our modern world in both developed and developing countries. He suggests a concrete course of action for the world of the have-nots, and ends the book with hope for Egypt in developing the nation's greatest natural resource its youth to build a more promising future, and for America to develop a new vision domestically and internationally.
From a beginning in an Egyptian delta town and the port of Alexandria to the scenic vistas of sunny southern California, Ahmed Zewail takes us on a voyage through time — his own life and the split-second world of the femtosecond. In this endearing exposé of his life and work until his receipt of the Nobel Prize in 1999, he draws lessons from his life story so far, and he meditates on the impact which the revolution in science has had on our modern world — in both developed and developing countries. What makes the book enchanting and engaging is Zewail's emphasis on the human dimension and his unique ability to paint the journey of Life and Science with insightful analogies and ingenious metaphors.But this inspiring book goes far beyond the usual province of an autobiography. Zewail integrates the two worlds he equally belongs to — Egypt and America — and, despite differences, he emphasizes the confluence of the two cultures — the East and the West. He rejects the view that the current state of the world is due to a clash of civilizations or a conflict of religions, and suggests a concrete course of action for the world of the have-nots. The book ends with his road map for a partnership between developed and developing worlds. Throughout the book, Zewail takes on the mantle of philosopher, historian and even political and economic adviser.
Ever since the beginning of mankind's efforts to pursue scientific inquiry into the laws of nature, visualization of the very distant and the very small has been paramount. The examples are numerous. A century ago, the atom appeared mysterious, a “raisin or plum pie of no structure,” until it was visualized on the appropriate length and time scales. Similarly, with telescopic observations, a central dogma of the cosmos was changed and complexity yielded to simplicity of the heliocentric structure and motion in our solar system. For matter, in over a century of developments, major advances have been made to explore the inner microscopic structures and dynamics. These advances have benefited many fields of endeavor, but visualization was incomplete; it was limited either to the 3D spatial structure or to the 1D temporal evolution. However, in systems with myriads of atoms, 4D spatiotemporal visualization is essential for dissecting their complexity. The biological world is rich with examples, and many molecular diseases cannot be fully understood without such direct visualization, as, for example, in the case of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. The same is true for phenomena in materials science, chemistry, and nanoscience. This anthology is an account of the collected works that have emerged over the past decade from Caltech. Through recent publications, the volume provides overviews of the principles, the electron-based techniques, and the applications made. Thanks to advances in imaging principles and technology, it is now possible with 4D electron microscopy to reach ten orders of magnitude improvement in time resolution while simultaneously conserving the atomic spatial resolution in visualization. This is certainly a long way from Robert Hooke's microscopy, which was recorded in his 1665 masterpiece Micrographia.
These two volumes on Femtochemistry present a timely contribution to a field central to the understanding of the dynamics of the chemical bond. This century has witnessed great strides in time and space resolutions, down to the atomic scale, providing chemists, biologists and physicists with unprecedented opportunities for seeing microscopic structures and dynamics. Femtochemistry is concerned with the time resolution of the most elementary motions of atoms during chemical change -- bond breaking and bond making -- on the femtosecond (10-15 second) time scale. This atomic scale of time resolution has now reached the ultimate for the chemical bond and as Lord George Porter puts it, chemists are near the end of the race against time. These two volumes cover the general concepts, techniques and applications of femtochemistry.Professor Ahmed Zewail, who has made the pioneering contributions in this field, has from over 250 publications selected the articles for this anthology. These volumes begin with a commentary and a historical chronology of the milestones. He then presents a broad perspective of the current state of knowledge in femtochemistry by researchers around the world and discusses possible new directions. In the words of a colleague, "it is a must on the reading-list for all of my students ... all readers will find this to be an informative and valuable overview."The introductory articles in Volume I provide reviews for both the non-experts as well as for experts in the field. This is followed by papers on the basic concepts. For applications, elementary reactions are studied first and then complex reactions. Volume I is complete with studies of solvation dynamics, non-reactive systems, ultrafast electron diffraction and the control of chemical reactions.Volume II continues with reaction rates, the concept of elementary intramolecular vibrational-energy redistribution (IVR) and the phenomena of rotational coherence which has become a powerful tool for the determination of molecular structure via time resolution. The second volume ends with an extensive list of references, according to topics, based on work by Professor Zewail and his group at Caltech.These collected works by Professor Zewail will certainly be indispensable to both experts and beginners in the field. The author is known for his clarity and for his creative and systematic contributions. These volumes will be of interest and should prove useful to chemists, biologists and physicists. As noted by Professor J Manz (Berlin) and Professor A W Castleman, Jr. (Penn State): femtochemistry is yielding exciting new discoveries from analysis to control of chemical reactions, with applications in many domains of chemistry and related fields, e.g., physical, organic and inorganic chemistry, surface science, molecular biology, ... etc.
Ever since the beginning of mankind's efforts to pursue scientific inquiry into the laws of nature, visualization of the very distant and the very small has been paramount. The examples are numerous. A century ago, the atom appeared mysterious, a “raisin or plum pie of no structure,” until it was visualized on the appropriate length and time scales. Similarly, with telescopic observations, a central dogma of the cosmos was changed and complexity yielded to simplicity of the heliocentric structure and motion in our solar system. For matter, in over a century of developments, major advances have been made to explore the inner microscopic structures and dynamics. These advances have benefited many fields of endeavor, but visualization was incomplete; it was limited either to the 3D spatial structure or to the 1D temporal evolution. However, in systems with myriads of atoms, 4D spatiotemporal visualization is essential for dissecting their complexity. The biological world is rich with examples, and many molecular diseases cannot be fully understood without such direct visualization, as, for example, in the case of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. The same is true for phenomena in materials science, chemistry, and nanoscience. This anthology is an account of the collected works that have emerged over the past decade from Caltech. Through recent publications, the volume provides overviews of the principles, the electron-based techniques, and the applications made. Thanks to advances in imaging principles and technology, it is now possible with 4D electron microscopy to reach ten orders of magnitude improvement in time resolution while simultaneously conserving the atomic spatial resolution in visualization. This is certainly a long way from Robert Hooke's microscopy, which was recorded in his 1665 masterpiece Micrographia.
From a beginning in an Egyptian Delta town and the port of Alexandria to the scenic vistas of sunny southern California, Ahmed Zewail takes us on a voyage through time -- his own life and the split-second world of the femtosecond. In this engaging exposé of his life and work until his receipt of the Nobel Prize in 1999, Zewail explores in non-technical language the landscape of molecules glimpsed on the scale of one quadrillionth of a second: the femtosecond, 0. 000 000 000 000 001 second. Zewail enriches the journey into the strange territory of femtochemistry with insightful analogies and illustrations to aid both the general reader and the scientifically inclined. He likewise draws lessons from his life story so far, and he meditates on the impact the revolution in science has had on our modern world -- in both developed and developing countries. He suggests a concrete course of action for the world of the have-nots, and ends the book with hope for Egypt in developing the nation's greatest natural resource -- its youth -- to build a more promising future, and for America to develop a new vision domestically and internationally.
Structural phase transitions, mechanical deformations, and the embryonic stages of melting and crystallization are examples of phenomena that can now be imaged in unprecedented structural detail with high spatial resolution, and ten orders of magnitude as fast as hitherto. No monograph in existence attempts to cover the revolutionary dimensions that EM in its various modes of operation nowadays makes possible. The authors of this book chart these developments, and also compare the merits of coherent electron waves with those of synchrotron radiation. They judge it prudent to recall some important basic procedural and theoretical aspects of imaging and diffraction so that the reader may better comprehend the significance of the new vistas and applications now afoot. This book is not a vade mecum - numerous other texts are available for the practitioner for that purpose.
Addresses significant problems in physical biology and adjacent disciplines. This volume provides a perspective on the methods and concepts at the heart of chemical and biological behavior, covering the topics of visualization; theory and computation for complexity; and macromolecular function, protein folding, and protein misfolding
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.