Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Crystallography
/ˌkrɪstəˈlɑɡrəfi/noun
The science of how atoms are arranged in crystalline solids.
The Greek roots
κρύσταλλος
krýstallos
ice, rock crystal
γράφειν
gráphein
to write, describe
Literally: “description of ice”
The story of the word
κρύσταλλος first meant ice. Greeks who found clear quartz high in cold mountains concluded it was ice frozen so hard that it could no longer melt, a theory Pliny passes on without much doubt, and the mineral inherited the ice word. The name of the science arrived through Latin, and the science itself began in 1912, when Max von Laue sent X-rays through a crystal and read the atomic spacing off the diffraction pattern.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- early 19th century
Same family
crystalcrystallinecryogeniccryosphere
In a sentence
Franklin's crystallography of DNA fibres produced the photograph that settled the structure.
Protein crystallography still runs on the same principle von Laue demonstrated.