Crystallography
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SCIENCE CONCEPT
Crystallography is the science of determining the arrangement of crystalline solids. It also helps to discern the inward structure of things. Modern crystallography uses X-rays to explore the insides of crystalline structures. Crystallography is also used to figure out the structures of DNA and proteins. Crystallography started out as a branch of physics but eventually branched out and helped to make advances in chemistry, geology, mineralogy and materials science. Crystallography is also important in fields such as Chemistry physics and biologists because they generate some of the knowledge they use. Forensic laboratories use crystallography as well for identification. Another reason crystallographers are important to other fields of science is that they create some of the experiments they use. Some crystallographers even create software for visualizing data. Crystallographers will also grow crystals for use in computer chips and many other things.
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APPLICATION
Crystallographers help in forensics by helping to identify different metal types used in various crimes. Biochemical fields need crystallography because viruses and other organisms must sometimes be crystalized to aid in their study. Crystallographers are often tasked with creating crystals to use in computer chips, optical components and pharmaceutical products. Crystallographers use X-rays to study the molecular structure of crystals.
Crystallography was first used to determine the arrangement of atomic materials and the size of atoms among other things. Crystallographers are also useful to engineers helping them to understand what kinds of compounds are present in the materials they want to use. |
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CAREER
Crystallographers can pursue teaching about crystallography as a career or they can oversee a diffraction laboratory for a government agency, national laboratory or industry. Some other career paths for crystallographers are research and manufacturing forensics and pharmaceutical and biochemical fields. Crystallographers will need a biology degree but might require up to a PhD in other fields. The potential annual salary for a crystallographer is 105,720. One good thing about becoming a crystallographer is the need for crystallographers is growing. A Lot of crystallography jobs have work hours aligned with normal work hours. Some jobs in the field of crystallography require the collection of X-ray data. As a teacher of crystallography you can oversee work given to your students in synthetic laboratories.
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SCIENTIST
Jerome Karle was born as Jerome Karfunkle. He was born in 1918 on June 18th. His parents were Sadie Helen and Lewis Karfunkle. He played some sports and was much more interested in science than sports but still enjoyed them. He received his bachelor's degree at age 15 in 1937 from the City College of New York. He also got his masters degree from Harvard University majoring in biology in 1938. He would soon develop a technique that would become standard for water fluoridation. In 1940 he met his future wife Isabella Lugoski. He gained a PhD in 1944 and was eventually elected the president of the American Crystallographic Association. He was awarded the Nobel prize for his work on direct methods. He died on June 6th 2013.
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ESSAY
Hello my name is Alex and I will be talking to you today about my Epsom salt crystal
experiment. I began the experiment for the first time on Friday March 1st. I began by boiling 1/2
cup of water over the stove once the water had reached its boiling point I carefully poured in the
¼ cup epsom salt. I then stirred the salt until it dissolved completely. I added two drops of food
coloring to the solution and stirred it until the solution was colored dark blue this would mark the
the results of the first control where interesting to me as i expected to see the typical flat faced
crystal with sharp edges but instead the control yielded crystals that looked to me to be frozen to
the base of the container instead of forming on the sponge like I had guessed they would. The
second control was much the same only this time I decided to use the same amount of cold water
instead of boiling water. The results of the control differed from the first only slightly as it
formed crystals of near the same type as the first control however it formed significantly less
epsom salt crystals than the first control did. The third control was different from the first and
second controls in that I used regular table salt instead of the epsom salt the experiment called
for.The third control was marked with red food coloring and in my opinion was the most
interesting out of the three controls as it had the most interesting results The results of the third
control differed greatly from that of control one and control two. For control, three few crystals
formed in the bottom and the salt failed to saturate. I later discovered this was due to
oversaturation of the salt as I did not add enough water to the pan as I needed to get results. It
turned out that table salt crystals tend to form slower than epsom salt crystals as they usually take
two to three days to fully form as opposed to epsom salt crystals that are cooled in a refrigerator
which can take anywhere from thirty minutes to a couple of hours. Throughout the first iteration
of the experiment the measurements of water and salt of both kinds never changed from their
suggested amounts of ½ cup of water and ¼ cup of epsom salt.The usual process for forming
crystals from normal salt differs significantly from the procedure you would use to create
crystals from epsom salt. To correctly form a batch of regular salt crystals I would have had to
dissolve as much salt in a beaker of warm water as I could and after The salt would no longer
dissolve. I would need to pour a little of the newly made solution into a saucer and then leave it
in the sun until it evaporated. Once the crystals formed they would have looked quite different to
the ones I grew with epsom salt. Had they been grown correctly they would have looked kind of
round and some of them would likely have been flat. This also happens to be the cheapest option
for growing crystals as regular table salt costs less than epsom salt does. It is also time efficient
as opposed to the borax crystal I originally wanted to make. It only takes a couple of days at
most instead of the possible week of the borax crystal. The reason I did epsom salt crystals and
the one control of table salt crystals was due to the fact that I did not have enough time to grow
the borax crystals like I originally wanted to. After completing the experiment for the first time I
waited a day and did the experiment again. I did the experiment differently this time from the last
in that I used the correct amount of water for each control.I found out that not enough water was
the problem with the first experiment and I incorrectly measured it out. I did get the salt amounts
wrong as well and corrected that in the next experiment. The biggest problem I had with my
project was that I did not actually have a measuring apparatus to conduct measurements with all I
had was a cup from the top of a bottle of laundry detergent. With the second experiment Instead
of putting the controls outside in the sun to evaporate. I placed the controls in the fridge to cool
this helped the evaporation process greatly and the crystal began to form in a matter of hours.
Over the course of this project I learned a lot about crystals and also about the solubility of
different things as well as about solubility itself. For instance I learned that solubility is the
ability of something to be dissolved, especially in water. I also learned that a solute is something
that is dissolved in a solution. Solution is a word i've heard and used many times myself but
never actually knew the true definition of until just recently. I also learned some interesting
things about crystallography I learned that Crystallography started out as a physics concept
And that X-rays are used in it to discover the inner workings of many different things such the
Structure of DNA and the atomic and molecular structure of a crystal. I learned that
crystallography is used in many other facets of science other than just mineralogy or physics. For
Example I learned that It is also used in life sciences, medicinal chemistry and materials science.
It is used in Biology for determining the 3D structures of proteins and nucleic acids. I also
learned that epsom salt is actually called epsomite and can be commonly found in places such as
mines and limestone caves and was originally discovered in Surrey England in nineteen sixty
five. Before I talked largely about all the things that went wrong now I will tell you all the things
that went right. I was lucky to have parents that were so supportive of my project as I could not
have done this without them. My mother supplied me with the epsom salt I required for my
project and my dad filmed me while I conducted one of my experiments. I was able to conduct
my second experiment correctly because I learned from the failure of the first. By the next
experiment I knew to use less salt as the container I was using for measurement was to big
and I also learned to use more water because of the cup I was using for measurement. The cup
was probably my biggest issue throughout both attempts at growing epsom salt crystals. The
biggest thing that actually went correctly for me during the experiment was the time I had to
conduct it. All in all other than the abundance of time to conduct the experiment and my
extremely supportive family not much went right for me during the course of the experiment and
I even ended up finding out later that one of my controles like I mentioned earlier was a totally
different experiment requiring different amounts of time to complete and different instruments
and materials to make work but I think that is what caused me to learn the most about my topic.
experiment. I began the experiment for the first time on Friday March 1st. I began by boiling 1/2
cup of water over the stove once the water had reached its boiling point I carefully poured in the
¼ cup epsom salt. I then stirred the salt until it dissolved completely. I added two drops of food
coloring to the solution and stirred it until the solution was colored dark blue this would mark the
the results of the first control where interesting to me as i expected to see the typical flat faced
crystal with sharp edges but instead the control yielded crystals that looked to me to be frozen to
the base of the container instead of forming on the sponge like I had guessed they would. The
second control was much the same only this time I decided to use the same amount of cold water
instead of boiling water. The results of the control differed from the first only slightly as it
formed crystals of near the same type as the first control however it formed significantly less
epsom salt crystals than the first control did. The third control was different from the first and
second controls in that I used regular table salt instead of the epsom salt the experiment called
for.The third control was marked with red food coloring and in my opinion was the most
interesting out of the three controls as it had the most interesting results The results of the third
control differed greatly from that of control one and control two. For control, three few crystals
formed in the bottom and the salt failed to saturate. I later discovered this was due to
oversaturation of the salt as I did not add enough water to the pan as I needed to get results. It
turned out that table salt crystals tend to form slower than epsom salt crystals as they usually take
two to three days to fully form as opposed to epsom salt crystals that are cooled in a refrigerator
which can take anywhere from thirty minutes to a couple of hours. Throughout the first iteration
of the experiment the measurements of water and salt of both kinds never changed from their
suggested amounts of ½ cup of water and ¼ cup of epsom salt.The usual process for forming
crystals from normal salt differs significantly from the procedure you would use to create
crystals from epsom salt. To correctly form a batch of regular salt crystals I would have had to
dissolve as much salt in a beaker of warm water as I could and after The salt would no longer
dissolve. I would need to pour a little of the newly made solution into a saucer and then leave it
in the sun until it evaporated. Once the crystals formed they would have looked quite different to
the ones I grew with epsom salt. Had they been grown correctly they would have looked kind of
round and some of them would likely have been flat. This also happens to be the cheapest option
for growing crystals as regular table salt costs less than epsom salt does. It is also time efficient
as opposed to the borax crystal I originally wanted to make. It only takes a couple of days at
most instead of the possible week of the borax crystal. The reason I did epsom salt crystals and
the one control of table salt crystals was due to the fact that I did not have enough time to grow
the borax crystals like I originally wanted to. After completing the experiment for the first time I
waited a day and did the experiment again. I did the experiment differently this time from the last
in that I used the correct amount of water for each control.I found out that not enough water was
the problem with the first experiment and I incorrectly measured it out. I did get the salt amounts
wrong as well and corrected that in the next experiment. The biggest problem I had with my
project was that I did not actually have a measuring apparatus to conduct measurements with all I
had was a cup from the top of a bottle of laundry detergent. With the second experiment Instead
of putting the controls outside in the sun to evaporate. I placed the controls in the fridge to cool
this helped the evaporation process greatly and the crystal began to form in a matter of hours.
Over the course of this project I learned a lot about crystals and also about the solubility of
different things as well as about solubility itself. For instance I learned that solubility is the
ability of something to be dissolved, especially in water. I also learned that a solute is something
that is dissolved in a solution. Solution is a word i've heard and used many times myself but
never actually knew the true definition of until just recently. I also learned some interesting
things about crystallography I learned that Crystallography started out as a physics concept
And that X-rays are used in it to discover the inner workings of many different things such the
Structure of DNA and the atomic and molecular structure of a crystal. I learned that
crystallography is used in many other facets of science other than just mineralogy or physics. For
Example I learned that It is also used in life sciences, medicinal chemistry and materials science.
It is used in Biology for determining the 3D structures of proteins and nucleic acids. I also
learned that epsom salt is actually called epsomite and can be commonly found in places such as
mines and limestone caves and was originally discovered in Surrey England in nineteen sixty
five. Before I talked largely about all the things that went wrong now I will tell you all the things
that went right. I was lucky to have parents that were so supportive of my project as I could not
have done this without them. My mother supplied me with the epsom salt I required for my
project and my dad filmed me while I conducted one of my experiments. I was able to conduct
my second experiment correctly because I learned from the failure of the first. By the next
experiment I knew to use less salt as the container I was using for measurement was to big
and I also learned to use more water because of the cup I was using for measurement. The cup
was probably my biggest issue throughout both attempts at growing epsom salt crystals. The
biggest thing that actually went correctly for me during the experiment was the time I had to
conduct it. All in all other than the abundance of time to conduct the experiment and my
extremely supportive family not much went right for me during the course of the experiment and
I even ended up finding out later that one of my controles like I mentioned earlier was a totally
different experiment requiring different amounts of time to complete and different instruments
and materials to make work but I think that is what caused me to learn the most about my topic.
