The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2011 is awarded to the Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer

“because, through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality”. 

 In quasicrystals, we find the fascinating mosaics of the Arabic world reproduced at the level of atoms: regular patterns that never repeat themselves. However, the configuration found in quasicrystals was considered impossible, and Dan Shechtman had to fight a fierce battle against established science. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2011 has fundamentally altered how chemists conceive of solid matter...