Crystallography matters ... more!

The scope of this 22nd DGK Annual Meeting is to show the diversity of crystallography as an interdisciplinary science. We are very glad that a number of renowed scientists, representing all different fields of crystallography, have accepted our invitation for a plenary lecture. It is our intention to offer researchers, feeling home within the interdisciplinary field of crystallography, an inspiring scientific platform.

The meeting will be preceded by a special IYCr2014 Symposium on 17 March.

Many initiatives have been and are being organized to involve schoolchildren at Mudaliarpet, Pondicherry (India) into crystallography on the occasion of IYCr2014.

1. At first, the students were given a brief introduction on various crystals, which made them think about how crystals are formed.

2. Following this, a team of students were selected for a project on Crystal Growth - investigating the size, shape and number of crystals formed, taking various substances such as table salt, sugar, epsom salt, borax, potassium nitrate and alum. 

3. A Radio Talk was given by the teacher and the students on the "International Year of Crystallography".

4. A lecture was given on the topic to the school students, following which a demonstration -cum- exhibition, along with a poster presentation by the teacher is to be arranged for view for the public around the school locale. 

5. A next attempt to telecast the above in the television is made.

6. Students of our school are participating in the IYCr2014 Crystal Growing Competition. 

From gigantic and exotic cave formations to everyday ingredients such as salt and sugar, crystals are all around us. In our latest special exhibition – Crystals: Beauty, Science, Structure – we look at the history of the study of crystals, an endeavour which has prized their mysterious and natural beauty, as well as probed their fundamental atomic structures.

In the middle ages, natural minerals were thought to carry occult properties, perhaps suggested by their startling array of colours and geometric forms. These regular forms promised a special insight into nature and from the 17th century onwards they were exactly measured and their symmetries exhaustively classified.

At the turn of the 20th century even deeper secrets were illuminated by the ground-breaking technique of x-ray crystallography. Today, crystallography is the hidden science behind many aspects of our lives.

This year, 2013, celebrates the centenary of the pioneering work of father and son William and Lawrence Bragg, which laid the foundations for the science of x-ray crystallography. The International Year of Crystallography takes place during 2014.

“L’ENIGMA ESCHER- PARADOSSI GRAFICI TRA ARTE E GEOMETRIA” is the title of a major retrospective exhibition of the work of Maurits Cornelis Escher, on display in Reggio Emilia until 23 March 2014.

The exhibition presents the work of the Dutch graphic artist from his debut on the scene to his latest years, bringing together 130 works, including lithographs, etchings and drawings, on loan from museums, libraries and national institutes – among which the Galleria d’Arte Moderna of Rome and the Fondazione Wolfsoniana of Genoa – as well as from some important, private collections.

A special section is dedicated to tilings, with a panel illustrating the 17 crystallographic planar groups and some original examples of Escher's plane-filling drawings.

The exhibition will then move to Caraglio (Cuneo, Italy), where it will be on display from 29 March to 29 June.

The exhibition is included in the events for IYCr2014 celebrations in Italy. 

Read the press release mentioning the connection of the exhibition with IYCr2014 (in Italian)

The exhibition "Living with crystal" (original title in Slovenian: Živeti s kristali), organized on the occasion of the International Year of Crystallography, will be open from 13 February 2014 to 11 January 2015 at the Slovenian Museum of Natural History, Ljubljana. 

On display: Photographs of minerals, Crystal drawings, Mineral and crystal collections, Jewellery, Fluorescent minerals, Interactive presentation of minerals and rocks on Biedermeier tables, Interactive play "Umek the Mineralogist", Microscopic world of crystals.

Authors: Miha Jeršek, Mirjan Žorž, Breda Činč Juhant, Katarina Fuchs

This year's exhibition at Carolina Rediviva, Platonic Solids and Quasicrystals, is all about crystallography and shows how this science has been perceived over time. By collaborating with the Museum of Evolution at Uppsala University, we can exhibit books side by side with real crystals, models of crystals and instruments that have been used to measure the angles of these strange formations that seem to have been cut and polished by human hand whereas in fact they have been shaped by uniform atomic structures.

Welcome on a beautiful journey through this collection of historical scientific books and artifacts.

La Cristallographie : Histoire, Art et Applications

Les Nations Unies ont décidé en Assemblée Générale le 03 juillet 2012 de déclarer l’année 2014 Année Mondiale de la cristallographie comme une résolution présentée par le Maroc. Cette manifestation a pour objectifs de:

• Sensibiliser le public à la cristallographie et les informer sur les applications menant aux développements technologiques les plus avancés dans notre société moderne.
• Inciter et encourager l’apprentissage et la connaissance de la cristallographie  par les jeunes, ceci  à travers des expositions, des conférences publiques et des démonstrations dans les écoles et universités.
• Illustrer l'universalité et la pluridisciplinarité de cette science.
• Intensifier les initiatives de renforcement des capacités en cristallographie, en Afrique puis en Asie et en Amérique latine.
• Favoriser la collaboration internationale entre scientifiques du monde entier, en particulier les collaborations Nord-Sud et Sud-Sud.
• Promouvoir l'éducation et la recherche en cristallographie, et renforcer ses liens avec les sciences.

La Semaine Scientifique et Culturelle de l'Etudiant (SEMET19), manifestation incontournable, créée à la Faculté des Sciences Semlalia, est un espace majeur pour faire vivre la communication scientifique dans notre université. Parmi ses objectifs ont dénombre: aider à découvrir la recherche scientifique, valoriser les actions de la culture scientifique et contribuer aux débats sur des questions scientifiques, culturelles, historiques, artistiques et éthiques.
Son rôle primordial est aussi de promouvoir les compétences des étudiants par la réalisation des posters, d’ exposés, de procédés expérimentaux, de pièces de théâtre scientifiques sous l’encadrement des enseignants chercheurs ainsi que celles des associations savantes tel que l’Association Marocaine de Cristallographie.

Cette semaine sera marquée par des activités diverses tel que des conférences, ateliers de formation, une pièce de théâtre scientifique, un concours de journalisme scientifique. Cette semaine se clôturera sur l’organisation d’une grande cérémonie de remise des prix aux meilleures réalisations des étudiants.

Download the poster of the event