It was a German philosopher who famously said, “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” Time and time again, great scientific minds see this process in action, as Israeli scientist Daniel Schectman lived it first hand over the last three decades. In April 1982, Professor Schectman made a dramatic discovery, one which has now rewritten chemistry textbooks and finally earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

But his road to acceptance, let alone recognition, was not easy. In 1982, Schectman looked under his electron microscope and saw that the crystal he had formed stood in direct violation with the accepted laws of nature. Until recently, it was believed that every crystal contains a unique pattern of the arrangement of atoms, a pattern that repeats itself perfectly and consistently. Almost any solid material, from ice to gold, is made up of ordered crystals. What the Israeli professor found that spring day is a pattern that was once thought impossible, proving that atoms could be packed into a pattern which did not repeat itself. The crystals were named by subsequent researchers as “quasicrystals,” but that didn’t stop Professor Schectman from being ridiculed as a “qausi-scientist.” One of his coworkers even presented him with a basic-level textbook on crystallography, suggesting he read it.

“His discovery was extremely controversial. In the course of defending his findings, he was asked to leave his research group,” said the Nobel Committee for Chemistry at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which announced the award earlier Wednesday morning.

“However, his battle eventually forced scientists to reconsider their conception of the very nature of matter,” it added in a statement. “Scientists are currently experimenting with using quasicrystals in different products such as frying pans and diesel engines.”

In a poetic note, understanding the Israeli scientist’s research was aided by analysis of Islamic architecture, specifically the arabesque style. The beautiful mosaics which dominated the Middle Ages across the Near-East are of the same mathematically regular but infinitely varied patterns as the quasicrystal.

Ten years after Professor Schectman’s findings, the International Union of Crystallography changed their definition of what a crystal actually is, removing the idea that the atoms must be packed in a “regularly ordered, repeating three-dimensional pattern.”

Today, quasicrystals are not only accepted as truth, but are seen as miracle compounds, having been used in, among others, ultra-strong thin needles used for delicate eye surgery.

“The main lesson that I have learned over time is that a good scientist is a humble and listening scientist and not one that is sure 100 percent in what he read in the textbooks,” said Shechtman at a news conference Wednesday at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel.

In addition to the Technion, Schectman is also a a professor at Iowa State University in Ames, Iwoa.

The Nobel Prize, perhaps the most prestigious award anyone could ever receive, has now been awarded 10 times to Israelis, a source of tremendous pride for such a small nation. The prize (10 million kronor, or $1.5 million USD)

Said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “I would like to congratulate you, on behalf of the citizens of Israel, for your award, which expresses the intellect of our people. Every Israeli is happy today and every Jew in the world is proud. I also congratulated your institution, the Technion, on the centenary of its founding.”