The Crystalline State

Abstract

THE goal of chemistry is the determination of the atomic arrangement in space, which will be able to account for all the properties of matter under consideration. The greatest achievements in this direction have been obtained by the application of purely chemical methods, essentially because of the wonderful artistic skill of generations of chemists. Since von Laue's discovery of the diffraction of X-rays, and Sir William and W. L. Bragg's first X-ray analysis of the crystalline state, however, the way has been opened to a much more intimate knowledge of the atomic pattern. It is characteristic that the first results of the X-ray method dealt with the stereochemistry of the solid state, which always had been nearly impossible to attack with previous methods. The X-ray method afterwards proved to be no less important for the structural analysis of liquids and of single molecules in the gaseous state, and this side of the development is by no means neglected in the first volume of the work before us; the title seems adequate because of the preponderant role the crystalline state has played in the great majority of investigations.

The Crystalline State.

Edited by Sir William Bragg Dr. W. L. Bragg. Vol. 1: A General Survey. By W. L. Bragg. Pp. xiv + 352 + 32 plates. (London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., 1933.) 26s. net.