Ahmed Hassan Zewail

Great Lives

Ejaj Tarif, Doctoral Student, SRF, S.N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences, Kolkata

   Ahmed Hassan Zewail is credited for developing the world's fastest camera to capture the motion of molecules and atoms. He was born in 1946, in a little town called Damanhur (Egypt) - the City of Horus surrounded by Rosetta and Alexandria, two great historical places. He was raised in the city of Disuq, on the bank of the Nile, the Rosetta branch.
He was so talented in his childhood that he was even called Dr. Ahmed in his elementary school. At a young age, he did his first experiment in his own bed room with self-constructed apparatus, using his mother's oil burner and a few glass tubes, in order to see how wood is transformed into a burning gas and a liquid substance. At that time, it was not clear to him why he developed this attraction to science at such an early stage. But now we all know the result of that attraction sprouted a new field of chemistry i.e. Femtochemistry and helped him to win the Nobel Prize in 1999.
   Femtochemistry is the study of ultrafast chemical processes, especially in the area of physical chemistry, on extremely short timescales, approximately 10^15 seconds (one femtosecond, hence the name). He received his Bachelor and Master Degree in science in Chemistry from Alexandria University and was awarded his PhD degree from University of Pennsylvania, United State. After his PhD, Zewail did his postdoctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley, supervised by Charles Bonner Harris. He was appointed as faculty at the California Institute of Technology in 1976 when he was made the first Linus Pauling Chair in Chemical Physics. He became a citizen of the United States on 5th March 1982. Last but not the least, Zewail was the director of the Physical Biology Center for Ultrafast Science and Technology at the California Institute of Technology.

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   Ahmed Hassan Zewail is credited for developing the world's fastest camera to capture the motion of molecules and atoms. He was born in 1946, in a little town called Damanhur (Egypt) - the City of Horus surrounded by Rosetta and Alexandria, two great historical places. He was raised in the city of Disuq, on the bank of the Nile, the Rosetta branch.
He was so talented in his childhood that he was even called Dr. Ahmed in his elementary school. At a young age, he did his first experiment in his own bed room with self-constructed apparatus, using his mother's oil burner and a few glass tubes, in order to see how wood is transformed into a burning gas and a liquid substance. At that time, it was not clear to him why he developed this attraction to science at such an early stage. But now we all know the result of that attraction sprouted a new field of chemistry i.e. Femtochemistry and helped him to win the Nobel Prize in 1999.
   Femtochemistry is the study of ultrafast chemical processes, especially in the area of physical chemistry, on extremely short timescales, approximately 10^15 seconds (one femtosecond, hence the name). He received his Bachelor and Master Degree in science in Chemistry from Alexandria University and was awarded his PhD degree from University of Pennsylvania, United State. After his PhD, Zewail did his postdoctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley, supervised by Charles Bonner Harris. He was appointed as faculty at the California Institute of Technology in 1976 when he was made the first Linus Pauling Chair in Chemical Physics. He became a citizen of the United States on 5th March 1982. Last but not the least, Zewail was the director of the Physical Biology Center for Ultrafast Science and Technology at the California Institute of Technology.

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