Pre-1962

This extract from 50 Years of X-ray Diffraction, edited by P. P. Ewald and published in 1962, recounts the early development of crystallography in this region.

CHAPTER 22

Scandinavia

by G. Hägg*

Denmark

Denmark was the last Scandinavian country to take up extensive X-ray analysis of crystals. Pioneer work in the twenties by the Dutch physicist J. R. Katz on high polymers, notably his discovery of the 'crystallization' of rubber on stretching, was not continued, nor was the work by the mineralogist H. Clausen (a student of Goldschmidt and of Aminoff) on fluoride minerals. Almost all subsequent research has been done by chemists. In pure chemistry, powder method phase identifications on calcifications, minerals, ammonia catalysts and drugs in forensic medicine have been published. Only one worker was doing crystal structure work at the end of World War II, but lately the subject has been gaining momentum, though much is at a preliminary stage. At the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural College, A. Tovborg Jensen (a student of W. L. Bragg and of Hägg) has done structure work on salt hydrates, and C. Knakkergaard Møller has investigated double halides. At the Royal Danish School of Pharmacy, Bodil Jerslev (a student of Hägg and of Dorothy Hodgkin) has studied oximes. Four chairs in chemistry are now occupied by X-ray crystallographers and an expansion of research in the field may be anticipated.

* The reviews on Denmark, Finland and Norway are based on material kindly supplied by Professor A. Tovborg Jensen, Professor M. Kantola and Dr. H. Viervoll respectively. In addition I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Professor A. Westgren in acquiring data for the review on Sweden.

First published for the International Union of Crystallography 1962 by N.V.A. Oosthoek's Uitgeversmaatschappij, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Digitised 1999 for the IUCr XVIII Congress, Glasgow, Scotland
© 1962, 1999 International Union of Crystallography