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100 Years of Crystal Structure Analysis

Date Description
24 Feb 2012 19:30

Science Group
24th February 2012,
Professor Paul Raithby
(Refreshments 7.00pm)
7.30 - 9.30pm,
All Welcome £4.00 (Members / Students £2).

Details

Early experiments with X-rays on crystals of copper sulphate led to the development of Bragg's Law and the revelation of crystal structures. Since then, X-ray crystal structure analysis has been fundamental to the development of much of the chemistry, biology and physics that we know today. Not only can we determine the molecular structures of complex materials but recent developments even enable us to make ‘molecular movies’ of reacting chemicals.

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Did you know...

Battle of Hastings

Hastings Elwin was instrumental in a lot of the early developments. He ended up working for the Slavery Compensation Board in Australia. It wasn't the slaves who were compensated, but the owners!

Curatorial Curiosities

pallasite, a stony-iron meteorite

Stony-iron Meteorite: Consisting of planet core and mantle materials, peridot olivine crystals in an iron-nickel matrix, there are only 61 Pallasites known. This is a small section of the first ever found: in 1772 German naturalist Peter Pallas studied a 680kg specimen found near Krasnoyarsk in the mountains of Siberia. Our small section was given to us by the antiquarian and traveller Sir Richard Colt Hoare, 2nd Baronet FRS (1758 – 1838).