Talk:Ahmed Zewail

Egyptian or American?
He was born in Egypt and is ethnically Egyptian. However, he is a US citizen, and citizenship trumps ethnicity. If not, then we have to call Washington "English," and Edison "Dutch," and Lindbergh "Swedish," and so forth. Godfrey Daniel 05:45, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

The abstract concept of "citizenship" does not trump ethnicity (race). That is exactly why so many thousands of Japanese-American citizens (ethnic Japanese with U.S. citizenship) ended up serving in the Japanese Imperial Army and Navy during WWII, even according to the rationale that they themselves gave after the war. (Read Professor John J. Stephan's book, Hawaii Under the Rising Sun). Starhistory22 (talk) 17:56, 16 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Excuse me, but Washington, Edison, and Lindberg were all born in the United States. Zewail was born and raised and lived most of his life in Egypt. He is a naturalized citizen of the US. There is a big difference. Egyegy 05:54, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

No, Washington was not born in the United States. Firstly, because there was no United States at the time, and, secondly, because he was born outside of the eventual territory of the United States. Starhistory22 (talk) 17:56, 16 April 2015 (UTC)


 * He is still an Egyptian citizen, he was born and raised in Egypt and only became a citizen of the U.S. when he was 36. American citizenship is not to be preferred over any other, and there is no conflict in mentioning both Egyptian and American.


 * Also, Egyegy, I don't know how his Egyptian nationality takes precedence over the other characteristics, if anything it is his profession and his receiving a Nobel Peace prize that made him notable, not his nationality.


 * Anyway, I tend to list categories in alphabetical order, not by significance, and that's why I placed the two categories in front. --Inahet 19:35, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Zewail or Zowail
1-I guess the question has been raised before, but why is AZ listed as Zowail? He publishes all his papers as Zewail, so I would assume that this is his correct, or at least preferred name. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.32.220.37 (talk) 00:52, 24 January 2009 (UTC) ✅ You're right his name is Zewail based on this http://www.its.caltech.edu/~femto/. I moved it to Ahmed Zewail.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 08:56, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I am another talker

2-My mother is from Zewail family and Ahmed Zewail is the cousin of my grandpa and I insure that it is "Zewail" not "Zowail".

Femtosecond Spectroscopy, Not "Femtochemistry"
Femtochemistry is not a real title/subject of research. It is called Femtosecond Spectroscopy. That is what every research university and research group that studies or uses this tool refers to it as. Femtochemistry is an absurd misnomer, since few if any chemical reactions occur on the femtosecond timescale, and his Nobel Prize was given for kinetic research (Eg: the study of chemical reactions). Atoms simply do not move around on the femtosecond timescale. They move around on the Picosecond (molecular vibration and diffusion limit) timescale or slower.68.6.76.31 (talk) 04:54, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

City of Science and Technology should be separate article
The new section on the Zewail City of Science and Technology should be moved to a separate article. It is not really about the scientist Ahmed Zewail, but rather about an institution that is named after him. Of course, if there are two articles, each can briefly link to the other. In this article, there can be a one-sentence mention of Zewail City with a link to the other article. And the other article can include the phrase named after the scientist Ahmed Zewail, with a link to this article. Dirac66 (talk) 02:59, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

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Close paraphrasing / copyvio
Much of the article is drawn from here. Black Kite (talk) 17:39, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I've been looking through the article, at this version which was tagged on 7 August 2016. It appears to be the three paragraphs under 'Research' that are a problem, from "His work started with [...]" down to "[...] different chemical processes and rotational motions." That is cited to an autobiographical book by Zewail: Voyage Through Time (2002), though for some reason the citation is to page 287 which is the index page where the index entries for Zewail appear. This text was added on 23 April 2012 by User:13OwensM, with some of the text removed in July 2012 as POV (suspected copyvio). Based on this, I'm going to remove what is left of what that user added, and try and replace it with a summary of Zewail's work and then improve the referencing of the rest of the article. Carcharoth (talk) 04:23, 9 August 2016 (UTC) See changes made in these three edits:, , . Parts of what has been removed could be restored if rewritten by someone with full access to Voyage Through Time (2002). Carcharoth (talk) 04:49, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Zewail's students
Noting here that I removed this uncited text, which mentions a student of Zewail. Can be added back if cited and if a more rounded overview of his teaching legacy can be provided (just a single example gives undue weight). Carcharoth (talk) 06:11, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

To check
Two bits removed to be checked: Carcharoth (talk) 14:55, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
 * 2012 lecture
 * Other Egyptian Nobels

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