الدكتور أحمد زويل

A. H. Zewail. Voyage Through Time: Walks of Life to the Nobel Prize, American University in Cairo (AUC), Cairo, 2002; so far in 17 languages and editions: English, French, German, Spanish, Romanian, Hungarian (in press), Russian, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Bahasa Malaysian, Indonesian, Hindi; and 4 editions. For detailed reviews of this book see, for example, articles written by W. Sibbett, B. V. McKoy and C. A. McKoy, and M. Chergui.

For this journey on the road to the Nobel prize, I have been asked several times to write a biography, or at least a biographical summary of my life. I declined these invitations. I was of the opinion that a traditional biography should represent a lifetime of work and experience and much effort and time are needed to do it well. In July of 1997 while on a trip to Cairo this strong feeling softened to a more moderate one. I was stimulated to ask a few questions by two books I was reading, one titled A History of Knowledge by Charles van Doren and the other Making Waves by Charles Townes. How did I acquire knowledge? Why did I become a scientist? What are the forces that have determined the walks of my own life? What are the meanings of faith, destiny, and luck? In the attempt to answer such complex questions, I began to sketch my thoughts....

D. L. Smith. Coherent Thinking, Eng. Sci. 62, 7 (1999)

At 5:40 in the doggone morning on Tuesday, October 12, Ahmed Zewail got a phone call. But it wasn't a wrong number or a particularly ambitious aluminum-window salesman—it was the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences informing him he had won the 1999 Nobel Prize in chemistry. The citation reads, in part, that Zewail "is being rewarded for his pioneering investigation of fundamental chemical reactions, using ultra-short laser flashes on the time scale on which the reactions actually occur"...

Energy in Cosmos, Molecules and Life, Alfred Nobel Symposium, Sånga-Säby Conference Center, Sweden, June 18-22, 2005.

This unique occasion gathers the leading competence from three broad scientific areas to discuss energy issues from an interdisciplinary perspective. This Nobel Symposium is the first to include all of the natural science categories of the Nobel Prize: physics, chemistry and physiology or medicine. The purpose is to create conditions for exchange and interaction, partly between different disciplines and partly between promising young researchers and the world's leading researchers...

Frontiers of Molecular Science, Nobel Centennial Symposium, Friiberghs Manor, Örsundsbro and Stockholm University, Sweden, December 4-7, 2001.

The Nobel Foundation's Symposium program was initiated in 1965. Since that time more than a hundred symposia have taken place. The symposia are devoted to areas of science where breakthroughs are occurring or deal with other topics of primary cultural or social significance. A series of Nobel Centennial Symposia was organized in 2001 to commemorate 100th anniversary of the Nobel prizes given out for world-class accomplishments in physics, chemistry, literature, peace, and physiology or medicine...

Molecular Frontiers, a global effort to promote the understanding and appreciation of molecular science in society.

Molecular Frontiers, a world-wide virtual institute, will seek to strengthen the position of science in society—among the public, in education and among politicians—as a primary approach to describing and analyzing reality. The institute will provide a forum for exchange and analysis of scientific advances and their implications, and will employ various strategies to engage the public in an open dialogue. The institute's activities will promote scientific knowledge in general with special emphasis on the molecular perspective. As knowledge may be considered a right to all, global open access will be a guiding principle...

Physical Biology Center for Ultrafast Science and Technology.

At Caltech, the main mission of the newly-established Physical Biology Center for Ultrafast Science and Technology (UST) is to develop the science and technology for observing complex molecular structures in motion using diffraction, spectroscopy, and microscopy. Such combined atomic-scale resolutions in space and time constitute the basis for a new field of study in what we refer to as four-dimensional (4D) structural dynamics...

A. H. Zewail. [url=http://www.amazon.com/Way-Will-Years-Today-Half-Century/dp/084990370X]The World in 50 Years, in The Way We Will Be 50 Years from Today, ed. M. Wallace, Thomas Nelson, Nashville, 2008, p. 228.

The world is an uncertain place, which is why the future and the unknown absolutely fascinate us. Veteran television journalist Mike Wallace asked the question "What will life be like 50 years from now?" to sixty of the world's greatest minds. Their responses offer a fascinating glimpse into the cultural, scientific, political, and spiritual moods of the times...

A. H. Zewail. Science and Technology in the Twenty-First Century, Academy of Sciences of Malaysia (ASM) Public Lecture, ASM, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, October 14, 2002.

Since the beginning of human civilization, science and technology has progressed in a continuous process. Fire must have been an exciting new technology for the first humans and to this day we are continuing research to fully answer the question, what is fire? But the search for new knowledge is based on rational thinking, which is fundamental for progress and for making new discoveries...

Physical Biology: From Atoms to Medicine, ed. A. H. Zewail, Imperial College Press, London (2008).

D. Shorokhov and A. H. Zewail. 4D Electron Imaging: Principles and Perspectives, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 10, 2879 (2008).

M. M. Lin, L. Meinhold, D. Shorokhov and A. H. Zewail. Unfolding and Melting of DNA (RNA) Hairpins: The Concept of Structure-Specific 2D Dynamic Landscapes[/url], Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. DOI: 10.1039/b804675c (2008); in press.

F. Carbone, P. Baum, P. Rudolf and A. H. Zewail. Structural Preablation Dynamics of Graphite Observed by Ultrafast Electron Crystallography, Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 035501 (2008).

H. Ma, C. Wan, A. Wu and A. H. Zewail. DNA Folding and Melting in Real Time: Observed Collapsed Structures Redefine the Energy Landscape, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 104, 712 (2007).

O.-H. Kwon and A. H. Zewail. Double Proton Transfer Dynamics of Model DNA Base Pairs in the Condensed Phase, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 104, 8703 (2007).

J. Tang, D.-S. Yang and A. H. Zewail. Ultrafast Electron Crystallography. 3. Theoretical Modeling of Structural Dynamics, J. Phys. Chem. C 111, 8957 (2007).

H. S. Park, J. S. Baskin, O.-H. Kwon and A. H. Zewail. Atomic-Scale Imaging in Real and Energy Space Developed in Ultrafast Electron Microscopy, Nano Lett. 7, 2545 (2007).

N. Gedik, D.-S. Yang, G. Logvenov, I. Bozovic and A. H. Zewail. Nonequilibrium Phase Transitions in Cuprates Observed by Ultrafast Electron Crystallography, Science 316, 425 (2007).

P. Baum, D.-S. Yang and A. H. Zewail. 4D Visualization of Transitional Structures in Phase Transformations by Electron Diffraction, Science 318, 788 (2007).

A. H. Zewail. 4D Ultrafast Electron Diffraction, Crystallography, and Microscopy, Annu. Rev. Phys. Chem. 57, 65 (2006).

J. S. Baskin and A. H. Zewail. Oriented Ensembles in Ultrafast Electron Diffraction, Chem. Phys. Chem. 7, 1562 (2006).

M. S. Grinolds, V. A. Lobastov, J. Weissenrieder and A. H. Zewail. Four-Dimensional Ultrafast Electron Microscopy of Phase Transitions, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 103, 18427 (2006).

V. A. Lobastov, R. Srinivasan and A. H. Zewail. Four-Dimensional Ultrafast Electron Microscopy, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 102, 7069 (2005).

R. Srinivasan, J. S. Feenstra, S. T. Park, S. Xu and A. H. Zewail. Dark Structures in Molecular Radiationless Transitions Determined by Ultrafast Diffraction, Science 307, 558 (2005).

D. H. Paik, I-R. Lee, D.-S. Yang, J. S. Baskin and A. H. Zewail. Electrons in Finite-Sized Water Cavities: Hydration Dynamics Observed in Real Time, Science 306, 672 (2004).

C.-Y. Ruan, V. A. Lobastov, F. Vigliotti, S. Chen and A. H. Zewail. Ultrafast Electron Crystallography of Interfacial Water, Science 304, 80 (2004).

H. Ihee, V. A. Lobastov, U. M. Gomez, B. M. Goodson, R. Srinivasan, C.-Y. Ruan and A. H. Zewail. Direct Imaging of Transient Molecular Structures with Ultrafast Diffraction, Science 291, 458 (2001).