Turner and I. S. Servi developed homogeneous nucleation theory for a solid-solid transformation, providing the technologically important basis for strengthening metallic alloys through precipitation hardening.

Independently and simultaneously to Cohen, he predicted the formation of metallic glass phases from sufficiently fast cooling of an alloy melt with a deep eutectic.

This was demonstrated by Pol Duwez at Caltech in 1959, who produced thin micron-sized sheets of an Au-Si alloy using a very high cooling rate (approximately 106 K/s).

H. S. Chen showed in 1971 that mm-sized glassy rods (so-called "bulk metallic glass," or BMG) of Pd-Cu-Si could be produced by suction casting with a cooling rate of 1000 K/s.

[3] One of his graduate students at Harvard described him as follows: "As a physicist, manager, psychologist and philosopher, he combines the erudition of a Renaissance scholar with the expert knowledge of a 20th century man of Science.