Old notices
These pages collect together notices posted on the IUCr web site in past years. They are retained for archival interest, but there is no guarantee (or likelihood) that many of the web links found in these notices will still be active.
Beevers-Lipson strips
Fourier methods for the determination of crystal structures were first mentioned by W. L. Bragg in 1929. This technique was then used successfully by Arnold Beevers and Henry Lipson for determining the structure of CuSO4.5H2O in 1934. Beevers and Lipson were trying to understand the structure of the triclinic crystal with two formula units in the unit cell when Beevers suggested using the Fourier method, which at the time was being suggested by Bragg for the determination of structures.
The problem of the technique came in the summation as there were 95 intensities and because of the resolution limitations it was decided five hundred points would have to be considered in the asymmetric unit.
Some trial and error ensued before in 1936 Lipson devised a method which saved a considerable amount of time and effort, and so the Fourier strips came into being. They were trialled to a wider audience with 70 sets being sold or given to laboratories in the first few years. Beevers continued to produce sets of the strips, until production declined as calculating machines and computers began to emerge.
A symposium at the University of Liverpool has been organized to celebrate the achievements of Lipson and Beevers in the presence of a number of members of Lipson's family.
The Barkla X-ray Laboratory of Biophysics at the University of Liverpool was opened on 21 July 2011 by Sir Tom Blundell and the late Dame Louise Johnson. Charles Glover Barkla was a graduate and then lecturer at the University, as were both Beevers and Lipson during their time. Barkla made a number of key contributions to the birth of X-ray physics and crystallography for which he received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1917.
An X-ray exhibition will be opened at the end of the symposium celebrating the achievements of Sir Oliver Lodge (the first physics Professor of the University in 1881), Barkla, Beevers and Lipson.
The event, which will take place on 17 July 2015, is free to attend. To register for the event please complete this form.