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Are crystallographers not physicists?

In the March 2000 issue of Physics Today, N. David Merman pleads for elegance in Physics and instructs crystallographers in the correct way to describe and explore aperiodic and quasicrystals. Distressed at crystallographer’s failure to appreciate his 'beautiful and illuminating shift from the structure of the crystal to the structure of its diffraction pattern', Merman concludes that crystallographers are 'not physicists' and 'not interested in electronic properties'.

Physics Today, March 2000, 11-12.

Ed.: He certainly isn’t reading my mail.

23 June 2009