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1. Divulgado o Prêmio Nobel de Química (1999)

    Acaba de ser divulgado o ganhador do prêmio Nobel de Química de 1999. O ganhador é o Professor AHMED H. ZEWAIL, do California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, USA. Veja texto abaixo sobre o trabalho do Prof. Zewail.

"The Academy's citation:
  For his studies of the transition states of chemical reactions using femtosecond spectroscopy.
  This year's laureate in Chemistry 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. Professor Zewail's contributions have brought about a revolution in chemistry and adjacent
  sciences, since this type of investigation allows us to understand and predict important reactions.

  Development of femtochemistry rewarded
  What would a football match on TV be without "slow motion" revealing afterwards the movements
  of the players and the ball when a goal is scored? Chemical reactions are a similar case. The
  chemists' eagerness to be able to follow chemical reactions in the greatest detail has prompted
  increasingly advanced technology. This years laureate in Chemistry,  Ahmed H. Zewail, has studied
  atoms and molecules in "slow motion" during a reaction and seen what actually happens when
  chemical bonds break and new ones are created.

  Zewail's technique uses what may be described as the world's fastest camera. This uses laser
  flashes of such short duration that we are down to the time scale on which the reactions actually
  happen - femtoseconds (fs). One femtosecond is 10-15 seconds, that is, 0.000000000000001 seconds,
  which is to a second as a second is to 32 million years. This area of physical chemistry has been
  named femtochemistry.

  Femtochemistry enables us to understand why certain chemical reactions take place but not others.
  We can also explain why the speed and yield of reactions depend on temperature. Scientists the
  world over are studying processes with femtosecond spectroscopy in gases, in fluids and in solids, on
  surfaces and in polymers. Applications range from how catalysts function and how molecular
  electronic components must be designed, to the most delicate mechanisms in life processes and how
  the medicines of the future should be produced.

Nota do editor: Veja mais detalhes sobre o Nobel de Química no seguinte endereço:
http://www.nobel.se/announcement-99/chemistry99.html#theprize

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