Does mathematical crystallography still have a role in the XXI century?

Abstract

Mathematical crystallography is the branch of crystallography dealing specifically with the fundamental properties of symmetry and periodicity of crystals, topological properties of crystal structures, twins, modular and modulated structures, polytypes and OD structures, as well as the symmetry aspects of phase transitions and physical properties of crystals. Mathematical crystallography has had its most evident success with the development of the theory of space groups at the end of the XIX century; since then, it has greatly enlarged its applications, but crystallographers are not always familiar with the developments that followed, partly because the applications sometimes require some additional background that the structural crystallographer does not always possess (as is the case, for example, in graph theory). The knowledge offered by mathematical crystallography is at present only partly mirrored in International Tables for Crystallography and is sometimes still enshrined in more specialist texts and publications. To cover this communication gap is one of the tasks of the IUCr Commission on Mathematical and Theoretical Crystallography (MaThCryst). © International Union of Crystallography 2008.