Disciplines
Crystallography
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Crystallography is the branch of science devoted to the study of molecular and crystalline structure and the physical properties that follow from it. Crystal geometry and external form had been studied since the eighteenth century, but the discipline was transformed in 1912 when Max von Laue conducted the first X-ray diffraction experiment, showing that a beam of X-rays scatters into a pattern that reveals a crystal's internal atomic arrangement. William Henry Bragg and his son William Lawrence Bragg turned this discovery into a working method the following year, deriving Bragg's law and using it to solve the first atomic crystal structures, work for which father and son shared the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics. X-ray diffraction remains the discipline's central technique.
Facts
Founded YearSourced to the subject's own account Central QuestionSourced to the subject's own accountHow does the precise three-dimensional arrangement of atoms within a crystal, protein or other ordered material determine the physical, chemical and biological properties observed at a larger scale? 1 ScopeSourced to the subject's own accountCrystallography is the experimental study of the arrangement of atoms in crystalline solids, using the diffraction of X-rays, electrons or neutrons to determine a material's internal structure. 1 SignificanceSourced to the subject's own accountWilliam Henry Bragg and his son William Lawrence Bragg shared the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics for founding X-ray crystallography, formulating Bragg's law relating the angles of diffracted X-rays to a crystal's atomic spacing and opening the modern era of structure determination. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Founded By
With his son William Lawrence Bragg, whose own entity is not yet live on this atlas; the two shared the 1915 Nobel Prize for the founding work.
Uses
X-ray diffraction is crystallography's central technique; this edge was unreachable before the crystallography discipline entity existed.
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