Crystallography education

In 1964 I embarked on my chemistry studies. Apparently the subjects inorganic chemistry and crystallography had most appeal for me during my education, because some years later I became interested in geology and mineralogy as a hobby. The earlier mentioned specialities stood me in good stead here (or were they the cause of my interest ) and my hobby developed into a large collection of silicate minerals. 

Waser, J. Pictorial representation of the Fourier method of X-ray crystallography, J. Chem. Educ. 45, 446-451 (1968). 

A major problem with crystallographic education is that crystallography is frequently approached as some unique science. Therefore, chemistry students do not apply their knowledge of chemistry to analyzing or learning crystallography. This creates a disconnection between chemistry and crystallography which is not natural. 

P. Krishna, D. Pandy, Close-packed Structures, International Union of Crystallography, Pamphlet 5, at http //www.iucr.org/education/pamplets (Accessed NovembCT 13, 2015). 

Curie wrote about properties associated with syrmnetries of fields. Thanks to his excellent education in crystallography he very early understood the importarKe of symmetry considerations. He formulated the essential principle by realizing that the symmetry of effect is dependent on the syrmnetry of cause . The eminent role of symmetry in the formulation of laws of physics has been more and more noticeable during the last 50 years. 

This is a sizeable topic, so we have divided the material between several sections of this chapter. There are many textbooks on X-ray crystallography. A very basic text is [23], and [24], [25] and [26] are readable accounts. For an excellent paper, which encourages us all to evaluate pubhshed crystal structures critically, see [27]. A very good teaching website of the International Union of Crystallography can be found at http // www.iucr.org/education. 

Crystallography and Crystal Chemistry Laboratory, Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhopal 462066, Madhya Pradesh, India e-mail dchopra iiserb.ac.in... 

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