An exhibition is running at the University of Oxford Botanic Garden throughout June and includes crystals, lab equipment, and stories of cutting edge and historical science from the Department of Chemistry and the Chemical Crystallography group.
Open until June 27th 2014 – all ages welcome. Free with admission to the Garden (admission is free for … Read the rest
A-level students from a range of schools attended a one-day course at the Museum of the History of Science and the Department of Chemistry in Oxford to find out about the science and applications of crystallography. In the morning they discovered how symmetry plays important role in the structure and diffraction of crystals in a … Read the rest
The UN designated International Year of Crystallography 2014 (IYCr2014) commemorates not only the centennial of X-ray diffraction, which allowed the detailed study of crystalline material, but also the 50th anniversary of the Dorothy Hodgkin’s Nobel Prize and the 400th anniversary of Kepler’s observation in 1611 of the symmetrical form of ice crystals, which began the … Read the rest
In celebration of the Bragg centenary, a short animated film has been released which details the journey of X-ray crystallography from the work of Max von Laue right up to the present day. The film was produced for the Royal Institution as part of the Ri Crystallography Collection
The University of Oxford Botanic Garden has organised a series of guided science walks through the Botanic Garden this summer.
Richard Cooper will be leading the first walk on 30th May entitled “How Do we Know what Molecules Look Like?” A rich variety of molecules occur naturally in plants and some have incredible properties: from … Read the rest
The Big Bang Fair is a free educational event open to visiting school groups that happens in March every year moving round the country. It works with partner organisations across business and industry, government and academia to try and give a flavour of the real scale of engineering and science in the UK, aimed at … Read the rest
As part of the Bragg Centenary Celebrations, Melvyn Bragg and his guests discussed the history of crystallography, the study of crystals and their structure on “In Our Time” on BBC Radio 4. His guests were Prof. Judith A. K. Howard (University of Durham), Dr. Christopher Hammond (University of Leeds) and Prof. Mike Glazer … Read the rest
Every year, Oxford Inspires organises an evening of social and cultural events in the centre of Oxford following the theme of Christmas Lights. A lot of the institutions within the city get involved, and this year that included Amber, who was invited to give a presentation at the Snowflake exhibition held at the History of … Read the rest
Not content with showing off the eye-catching brilliance of her new diamond engagement ring, final year Inorganic Chemistry student Rowena Scott wanted to reveal the beautiful symmetry of its atomic structure. She recorded an X-ray diffraction pattern from the diamond using one of the Chemistry Department’s new state of the art, SuperNova dual source X‑ray … Read the rest
In October, Lynn Nickerson (Science Club Coordinator at Didcot Girls School) arranged for a small group to visit Chemical Crystallography in Oxford University’s new Chemistry Research Laboratory (Figure 1). The group was invited to bring some samples of common crystalline materials with them. The samples brought included cane sugar and citric acid (Figure 2). The … Read the rest
