Book Reviews September 2001

There are 2 reviews in this issue:

The Basics of Crystallography and Diffraction - 2^nd Edition
The Nobel Prize Women in Science Their Lives, Struggles and Momentous Discoveries

Title:"The Basics of Crystallography and Diffraction - 2^nd Edition"
Author: Christopher Hammond
Publisher: Oxford University Press 2nd Edition May 2001
hardback ISBN 0-19-850553-1 UK price £49.95
paperback ISBN 0-19-850552-3 £22.95

This text book is aimed at advanced undergraduates and post graduate students working in the areas of solid-state chemistry, physics, materials science and earth science, and also contains information that will be of value to more experienced research workers and lecturers. In this new edition the first edition has been significantly expanded (242 pp to 331) and much of the material has been revised and updated. In particular, the reader is introduced to topics that are of more general interest but that are closely related to the basic concepts of crystallography and diffraction.

By comparison to the first edition, in the second edition Chapter 1 is expanded to show how a variety of more complex crystal structures can be explained in terms of different faulting sequences of close-packed layers. In addition, the structures of carbon including fullerenes are discussed, and related to the development of symmetry ideas. In Chapter 2 the figures have been updated and these facilitate a clearer understanding of two-dimensional and, consequently, three-dimensional symmetry. Non-periodic patterns are also introduced. Chapter 3 now includes a short discussion on space-filling polyhedra and in Chapter 4 the discussion of space groups is significantly expanded, and is a very helpful background to the understanding of the Space Group representations in Vol. A of the International Tables for Crystallography. Chapters 5 and 6, covering lattice planes and Miller indices, and the reciprocal lattice, have been revised, and are now easier to read and understand. In Chapter 7 the human eye as an optical instrument is discussed, and the processes involved are related to the situation in the diffraction process for other wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation. In Chapter 8 the contributions of von Laue, the Braggs and Ewald to X-ray diffraction are described. Chapters 9 and 10 in the first edition have been expanded to Chapters 9, 10 and 11 in the new edition. The topics of X-ray and neutron diffraction from ordered crystals, preferred orientation and its measurement are now covered in detail, and the relevance of the work on preferred orientation to materials and earth sciences emphasised. Chapter 12 contains an excellent discussion and explanation of stereographic projections, and the usefulness of the method explained. The book is completed with a series of useful appendices including details of crystallographic model builders, crystallographic software, biographical notes on famous crystallographers and other scientists working in the area of diffraction, useful crystallographic relationships, vectors and complex numbers, and systematic absences. There are useful teaching exercises at the end of each chapter with quite detailed answers at the end of the book.

Overall, the second edition represents a significant improvement on the already high quality first edition. The material is clearly laid out and the subject is developed logically. The fundamental importance of symmetry is made at an early stage. While the subject matter is correctly described as 'basic' the text can be read at several levels and there are aspects that will be of interest to undergraduate students and others that are better suited to researchers with greater experience and expertise. Throughout, the text is very readable, and the level of mathematics is appropriate to the subject matter covered. The additional material of preferred orientation fibrous materials is very interesting and useful, and is the discussion of electron diffraction and its applications given in Chapter 11.

I strongly recommend this book to students and lecturers working in the area of crystallography and diffraction. The textbook is one in a series sponsored by the International Union of Crystallography and published by Oxford University Press.

Paul Raithby
University of Bath
July 2001

Editor's Note: Click here for the correct version of Fig 2.9 on Page 56 or here for a review of the previous edition

Title: "Nobel prize Women in Science. Their Lives, Struggles and Momentous Discoveries"
Author: Sharon Bertsch McGrayne
Publisher: Carol Publishing Group 1998 2nd Edition UK price £15 US$19.95
ISBN 0-9702256-0-1 450 pages paperback with line diagrams and photographs

This is a fascinating book for all those interested in the history of science, especially those who wonder why some people become great scientists and yet others with apparently similar abilities leave science altogether. This book describes the lives of 15 women who have either themselves won a Nobel prize or played a crucial role in a Nobel-prize winning project; it tries to answer the question: why have only 10 of recipients of the Nobel Prize in the sciences been women when there have been over 300 men since the Prizes were first awarded in 1901?

The first chapter, 'A Passion for Discovery' analyses the qualities these women had in common which enabled them to overcome the many obstacles in their way.

First, they adored science, they had many other activities but they were all passionately determined and in love with their work.
They had sympathetic parents and influential relatives; most of them were from professional or academic families; for example we learn that Dorothy Hodgkin's uncle asked a friend for advice as to how Dorothy could continue in science after her first degree. The friend replied she should should try to become a student of J.D.Bernal.
Religious values stressing education were critical; some were Quakers and half were Jewish.
Behind many of these successful women stood a man; the Braggs and J.D.Bernal encouraged a generation of English women crystallographers, including Dorothy Hodgkin. Others were not so fortunate, on page 7 we read 'Unfortunately for Jocelyn Bell Burnell's career her thesis adviser failed to become her mentor and she received little or no career counselling.'
Good luck and timing were vitally important; pioneers like Marie Curie and Lise Meitner came of age just as European Universities opened their doors to women; eight of the fifteen women were born within fifteen years of each other, eleven within a single generation between 1896 and 1921. Some, like Gertrude Elion, (prize winner in 1988) had worked for years without managing to get a 'scientific' job, but it was not until late in the Second World War that the shortage of industrial chemists enabled her to get a research post with Burroughs Wellcome. There she worked on purines, studying not only their structures but also their biochemical reactions, searching for better drugs for diseases such as leukaemia and others to prevent rejection in transplanted kidneys.

The book has 3 sections, 'First generation pioneers', including Marie Curie and Lise Meitner, 'Second generation' which includes both Dorothy Hodgkin and Rosalind Franklin, and 'The New Generation', Jocelyn Bell Burnell, an astronomer who discovered quasars as a graduate student, and Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, a developmental biologist who gained the Nobel prize for physiology and medicine in 1995.

Each woman's life is described in a separate chapter using information from primary and secondary sources and interviews with colleagues, students, family, friends and experts in the field. Bibliographic references for the sources are collected into a section of 'Notes' at the end and there is a comprehensive index. All scientific explanations are nontechnical and illustrated with simple diagrams or photographs, including some I had not seen before for the crystallographers.

I enjoyed this book; I learned new facts on the careers of some people I thought I knew all about and as a physicist I was surprised to find I understood the more biological and medical chapters.

Kate Crennell
15 July 2001

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