The Nobel Prize for Chemistry has been awarded to an Egyptian-American for his pioneering work with

(12 Oct 1999) English/Nat

The Nobel Prize for Chemistry has been awarded to an Egyptian-American for his pioneering work with lasers.

Scientist, Ahmed Zewail has shown that a rapid-firing laser can observe the motion of atoms in a molecule, during chemical reactions.

The Nobel Prize is the latest in a series of plaudits offered to Zewail and his colleagues at the California Institute of Technology for work in this field.

It was congratulations all round when Ahmed Zewail arrived at work on Tuesday morning

The 53-year-old scientist had just found out that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his work capturing ultrafast snapshots of atomic reactions.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"Well in the excited state as they say, I feel well, very, very well.
(Q) Did you expect it? You can never expect a Nobel Prize, nobody ever expects a Nobel Prize. People tell you that you can get it but you never expect a Nobel Prize so it was very thrilling to get the call at 5.30 this morning.
(Q) What happened with the telephone call? Well the Royal Swedish Academy, the secretary-general called and he said 'I'm sorry to wake you up and I have some good news' and then he told me about the award and the significance and so on.
(Q) How did you feel when you got off the phone? Did you jump in the air?
I went and kissed my wife and kissed my children and she made a cup of coffee and the phone did not stop until now. It just did not stop."
SUPER CAPTION: Ahmed Zewail, Nobel Laureate

Colleagues who work with Zewail are elated at the award and say he's a deserving recipient.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"Yeah I was excited, I woke up at six and went and turned on the computer and went on-line and there he was, Ahmed Zewail, it was unbelievable. I'm really excited, I'm so happy and I'm one hundred percent sure he deserves it, it's great."
SUPER CAPTION:

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"He did some very good experiments in the late 80s and he's the founder of the field. Now there's hundreds of groups all over the world doing the same thing and I think many people didn't believe it was possible but he showed it was and now it's a standard thing, text-books, conferences, everywhere."
SUPER CAPTION:

Zewails' development known as femtochemistry, uses ultra-fast lasers to measure the movement of atoms during chemical reactions.

His ground-breaking research has helped explain the way the human eye adjusts to the dark and the way plants convert light to food in photosynthesis.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"Until the work at CalTech you could not really see them in real time, you could not see the motion of the atoms."
SUPER CAPTION: Ahmed Zewail, Nobel Laureate

Zewail grew up in Egypt and got his first science degree from Alexandria University in 1967.

From there he went to the United States, where he earned a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania.

He then performed research at the University of California in Berkeley and was appointed to CalTech's faculty in 1976.

Zewail and his team have been showered with honours over the years, the Nobel prize is the latest.

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