Science·Modern
Ahmed Zewail Wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- Date
- October 1999 CE1420 AH27 years ago
- Place
- Pasadena, California, USA
- People
- Ahmed Zewail
Ahmed Zewail, an Egyptian-born chemist, won the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his studies of chemical reactions using femtosecond laser spectroscopy. He was the first Egyptian and the first Arab to win a Nobel Prize in a science field. His work at Caltech created femtochemistry, which tracks atoms during a reaction on a very short timescale.
Why it matters
Femtochemistry became a standard method for observing chemical reactions as they happen.