Book Review - 'Crystallography Across the Sciences'
Crystallography Across the Sciences
Editor: Henk Schenk
Publishers: Munksgaard International, 35 Nørreø Søgarde, DK-1016, Copenhagen K, Denmark, November 1998
(for the International Union of Crystallography, 2 Abbey Square Chester,
CH1 2HU ISBN 87-16-16327-3 Hardback US$ 25 (about £15 )
268 pages, 39 colour, 141 black and white illustrations
Ordering details on the WWW
http://www.iucr.org
The International Union of Crystallography was founded in 1948 which was a great year for innovation; we recently celebrated 50 years of computing in Manchester and the opening of the Bio-molecular Structure Laboratory at Birkbeck College, London The Editors of 'Acta Crystallographica' decided to issue a special commemorative edition and invited Henk Schenk be a guest editor. This volume is the result; it was first published as 'Section 1' of the November 1998 issue of 'Acta Crystallographica A' so those of you with subscriptions will have read it already. The editors produced the book by reprinting the pages of the journal, (including the advertisements and original page numbers!) and added a hard cover. This kept the printing costs down. The book is sold at a remarkably low price for a hardback book in these days and is well worth the money. It contains 26 review articles written by eminent authorities in the field. A brief biography of some of the contributors is provided. Each article is complete in itself with copious references. Together they form an excellent survey of the state of crystallography across the pure sciences at the end of the twentieth century. There is little on hardware, applications, or advances due to improvements in computers.
The initial articles are of general interest to everyone. The first one is by Durward Cruickshank on the history of the Union; he was the ideal person to write this since he has personally been involved with Union activities since its inception. Then follows an article by István Hargittai on 'Symmetry in Crystallography' and one by Jenny Glusker on teaching; She defines the attributes of a good teacher and describes mentoring as essential. We learn that W.H.Bragg's concern for his student Kathleen Lonsdale led him to organise a grant to help her pay a housekeeper to care for her three young children so that she could work on her research in his laboratory. Michael Rossman describes the development of the determination of structures from simple salts to sophisticated viruses. He begins much further back than 50 years, with a reference to the work of Robert Hooke in 1665. Frank Allen describes crystallographic databases, John Helliwell discusses the uses of synchrotron radiation and Terry Willis those of neutron scattering. There is plenty to interest members of each BCA group here, including advances in powder diffraction analysis for our Industrial Group, phase transformations in smart materials for the physicists, molecular models for muscle contraction for the biologists and real time 'in situ' observations of chemical reactions for the chemists.
The editors initially listed 80 topics of interest before cutting the list to the 26 articles printed here, which are not perhaps the same 26 which others might have chosen. I should have liked to see their list of rejected topics, perhaps printed as a summary at the end with a few words drawing the various themes of the articles together. There is a 'Contents' with a 'mini-abstract' for each paper, but no index, which would have made the wealth of information in this book much more accessible.
Kate Crennell
for the BCA home page