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Seeing Things in a Different Light: How X-ray crystallography revealed the structure of everything



The Royal Institution

X-Ray Crystallography might seem like an obscure, even unheard of field of research; however structural analysis has played a part in almost every major scientific field since its discovery 100 years ago by William Henry, and William Lawrence Bragg.

In this Friday Evening Discourse at the Royal Institution, Professor Stephen Curry charts the discovery and development of this extraordinary technique, starting with a simple explanation of diffraction, moving through the integral work of the Braggs, and ending with the cutting edge uses that X-Ray Crystallography has found in the modern world.

This film is part of the Crystallography Collection: a series of short films produced by the Ri Channel, with the support of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), celebrating the 100th anniversary of the discovery of X-Ray Crystallography by the Braggs

Read Stephen Curry’s blog post about this event: http://rigb.org/blog/2013/november/stephen-curry-fed

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43 thoughts on “Seeing Things in a Different Light: How X-ray crystallography revealed the structure of everything
  1. Excellent. What a presentation! I had expected it to be outstanding like most things British and I was not disappointed.  Well done Dr. Curry.

  2. The picture at the lower left at 30:13 is not sphalerite (zincblende is the old name for sphalerite) but pyrite.  The picture used in the video actually comes from the wikipedia page for "cubic crystal system" which identifies that specimen as a pyrite specimen.  Judging from the matrix I'd say that it is a pyrite from Navajun, Spain.  Although pyrite and sphalerite are both isometric (cubic) minerals, sphalerite rarely (never?) forms macroscopic cubes.

  3. Actually the name is suposed to sound [Ryontgen] (if eventually someone else cares about that) .
    & yes , '' [] '' shows it is a transcription .

    & nice presentation .

  4. Very classic style lecture, well done, graphics were, resolution was very good. I like how the lecturer brought in the history and tied it together with present day thought. Very well delivered, nice pace. Camera though should be on at all times what the person / lecturer is pointing to or referring to, the camera man/production staff seem to forget the audience (the viewing audience) is not physical present so we can't see both the screen and the professor at the same time, but otherwise, thanks for a very professional presentation. Friends from across the lake (US) thanks again.sms

  5. For me, it was the best explanation of X-ray crystallography I have ever watched. the way the lecture was build, since the beginning of the X-ray until the modern ways to do it. Thank you very much. congratulations.

  6. A very well spoken presentation indeed.

    Prof Curry I wish you had taught my physics class when I went to school to be an xray technologist, so many years ago. With all due respect to my teacher, at the time, I did leave there was a complete understanding of the creation of xrays, but feel your presentation would have made it a much easier task for sure.

    The history aspect used to present this material made it that much more interesting to me.

    I was aware of your mispronunciation of Roentgen's name but decided to give you a pass on that. 🙂 I hope you will do the same for any misspellings and or poor grammar in this post. 

  7. That Watson and Crick didn't share their Nobel Price with Florence Bell is a historical shame. Without her showing them the diffraction pattern, they would never have been able to beat Ulf Lagerkvist in Sweden to the publishing of the structure (little known fact, he was only three months away from print).

  8. My field is in materials chemistry, I use X-ray crystallography extensively to identify unknown materials. It truly is a genius technique. Big up Professor Curry for an awesome lecture 🙂

  9. Will you please take the time to comment on this, to an electron devotee. If in an experimental setup in 'our world', not in the world and dimensions of the atom off course, particles were spread somehow in 3D space, hit with radiation and produced AN IDENTICAL (LAUE) DIFFRACTION PATTERN, AS THE ONE THAT IS CREATED BY A NaCl, for example, CRYSTAL, what would the relationship be, between the known position of these particles and the position (instantaneous ?) of the electrons in the atoms of NaCl that underwent through a regular crystallographic process, if any.?

  10. Crystals all the way up, and crystals all the way down. First earth crystals led to living protein crystals, now we find time crystals. I suspect gravity is crystalline & consciousness too. Water crystals are the gateway to reverberations of consciousness. The best instrumentation is betwixt the ears, but external validation of insight is the real challenge. Thanks for some insights & validation! ?

  11. Kinda lost when he spoke about each spot is a reflection plane and so on. What happened to diffraction? He disappeared it. Also , how he jumped from inorganic crystals to atomic positions in molecules. Not so perfect professor.

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