Curl Jr, Sir Harold W. Kroto, and Richard E. Smalley. Fullerenes, also known as buckyballs, are spherical molecules composed of carbon atoms. The see more discovery of fullerenes launched the field of nano-materials, one of the fastest-growing fields in chemistry today. In 1996, 11 years after the publication of the discovery, the three researchers were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry. No controversy surrounded this discovery. In 1986, two IBM researchers, Karl Müller and Johannes Bednorz, discovered high-temperature Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical superconductive materials. Although superconductivity was first discovered in 1911, nobody expected

to see this phenomenon at the relatively high temperatures of liquid nitrogen. In 1987, one year after publishing their discovery, the two researchers were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics. Again, no controversy surrounded this discovery, and, as the short period of time between the discovery and awarding of the prize shows, the discovery was enthusiastically embraced by the scientific community. Publication Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical of the third discovery pre-dates the publication of the other two discoveries. I published the discovery of quasi-periodic crystals in 1984 and was awarded a Nobel Prize Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical in 2011, 27 years after the discovery. Unlike the previous two discoveries,

this discovery was met with fierce opposition and a substantial amount of controversy. What was so controversial about this discovery that it raised the antagonism of so many people in the scientific community? Why would Linus Pauling, a twice-awarded Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical Nobel Laureate and one of the greatest chemists of the twentieth century, state: “There is no such thing as quasi-crystals, only quasi-scientists”? In order to answer these questions, I must first give a short introduction to crystallography. For that purpose, I will define

three basic terms Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical in crystallography: order, periodicity, and rotational symmetry. UNDERSTANDING CRYSTALLOGRAPHY Order Crystals are solids that have an atomic structure of an indefinitely extended, three-dimensional order. A simple two-dimensional ordered lattice is shown in Figure 1. The continued order of this lattice is evident in all directions. Figure 1 Example of rotation, order, and symmetry in an atomic lattice. Periodicity The periodicity of the lattice is defined by the lengths and mutual orientations of the three lattice vectors that enclose the pattern. As can unless be seen in Figure 1 (top left), periodicity exists when the distance between any two adjacent points on a straight vector is the same. Rotational Symmetry An object that has rotational symmetry is an object that looks identical after it is rotated. The lattice in Figure 1 is identical if we rotate it by 90°, 180°, 270°, or 360°. Therefore, this lattice has a four-fold rotational symmetry. Figure 2 shows objects that have two-, three-, five-, and six-fold rotational symmetry. Figure 2 Objects with a two-, three-, five-, and six-fold rotational symmetry.