Dan Shechtman: ‘Cyrus Smith was my idol’

My dream in life was to be a mechanical engineer. Why so? Because the book I loved when I was young is a book by Jules Verne called The Mysterious Island. In this book, there is a group of five Americans stranded on an island. The island has everything, but no people, and they create life there, modern life in the days of Jules Verne. The leader is an engineer, Cyrus Smith is his name. He could make everything, he was my idol. I wanted to be like him.

I graduated in 1966. That year, there was a big recession all over the world, I could not find a job. Is it good or bad that you don’t find a job? Sounds bad, right? At the time I was two years married and I said: ‘Well, I’ll do my master’s degree, get some salary as a teaching assistant, and then find a job.’ But during these three years of my master’s, I fell in love with science and I decided to go for my PhD. So if you don’t find a job, it’s not necessarily bad. I think I could have been a good mechanical engineer, but fate took me to a different place.