Customer Reviews

The Basics of Crystallography and Diffraction: Third Edition (International Union of Crystallography Texts on Crystallography)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I used this text for a course on material structures in which we covered most of this book for about half the semester and then moved onto topics such as polymer structure, liquid crystals, and basic quantum mechanics behind orbitals and the formation of atomic bonds. I must say the most painful parts of the course were those covered in this book. We used another text created by the professor in lieu of chapter one, and the difference was remarkable. Fairly easy topics are shrouded in heavy text and lack of clear explanations. I had alternate sources for each and every chapter in the book because the book never provided enough information to truly grasp the material.

Most sections go as follows: historical and other non-important details mixed with some useful information, then an introduction to a new topic and why it's useful, a short but inadequate explanation of the topic, skips the section where a student would learn to arrive at a conclusion, states the conclusion without a real explanation. This approach works fine for some chapters and horribly for others (the Ewald sphere chapter is a nightmare).

I'm sure this seems great to someone who already knows the material (it proved awesome for studying for the final since my mind was filling in the blanks in the text), but it really is lacking as a teaching text. It's not set up like a textbook (no examples and few exercises), and should not be used as one.

This book represents a fair introduction to the world of crystallography and crystal structure determination. The chapters on structure determination are the best, although some of the more advanced material, e.g. EBSD, is lightly sketched, and should perhaps have been omitted.

The early chapters are somewhat more problematic: much is stated about crystal structures without justification, and this makes for a hard and often unilluminating read. Overall, though, the author has succeeding in writing a reasonable introductory text for a difficult field.

An excellent basic textook on crystallography, which is a absolutely necessary discipline for everybody concerned with the solid state and encompassing disciplines such as materials science, metallurgy, solid state physics, inorganic and organic chemistry, macromolecular biochemistry, mineralogy and petrology, etc. The textbook represents a solid introduction to the field and a nice primer to be used in introductory courses. It is to be followed by the more complete "Fundamentals of Crystallography" by C. Giacovazzo and co-authors.