First Russian Crystallographic Congress: From Convergence of Sciences to Nature-Like Technologies

Abstract

For the last 100 years, crystallography has passed a complex and interesting way: from descriptive mineralogy; through chemistry, chemical analysis, and new crystal growth technologies; to physics (X-ray diffraction analysis, physical materials science) and then to biology and protein crystallography. Actually, the starting point in the development of modern crystallography is the discovery of X-ray diffraction. Specifically X rays revealed the complex, three-dimensional, and periodic structure of all materials surrounding us.