Ahmed Zewail - ((install))

Zewail spent the majority of his career at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) , where he served as the Linus Pauling Chair Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Physics.

Zewail's work led to the birth of femtochemistry, a field that seeks to understand the dynamics of chemical reactions at the femtosecond timescale. His research group at Caltech developed innovative techniques, such as pump-probe spectroscopy, to study the ultrafast dynamics of chemical reactions. These techniques enabled Zewail and his colleagues to visualize the transition states of chemical reactions, providing unprecedented insights into the mechanisms of chemical transformations.

But Zewail needed to go smaller. Much smaller.

Winning the Nobel did not slow Zewail down. If anything, it accelerated his mission. He turned his lens from small molecules to complex biological systems. He pioneered —adding the dimension of time to the already powerful 3D imaging of electron microscopes. This allowed scientists to watch viruses invade cells, metals melt, and crystals form in real-time.