Space Group - History

History

Space groups in 2 dimensions are the 17 wallpaper groups which have been known for several centuries.

In 1879 Leonhard Sohncke listed the 65 space groups (sometimes called Sohncke space groups or chiral space groups) whose elements preserve the orientation. (In fact he listed 66 groups, but as Fyodorov and Schönflies both noticed two of them were really the same.) The space groups in 3 dimensions were first enumerated by Fyodorov (1891) (whose list had 2 omissions and one duplication), and shortly afterwards were independently enumerated by Schönflies (1891) (whose list had 4 omissions and one duplication). The correct list of 230 space groups was found by 1892 during correspondence between Fyodorov and Schönflies. Barlow (1894) later enumerated the groups with a different method, but managed to omit one group even though he already had the correct list of 230 groups from Fyodorov and Schönflies; the common claim that Barlow was unaware of their work is a myth. Burckhardt (1967) describes the history of the discovery of the space groups in detail.

Read more about this topic:  Space Group

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records between the material and the moral nature.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    In nature, all is useful, all is beautiful. It is therefore beautiful, because it is alive, moving, reproductive; it is therefore useful, because it is symmetrical and fair. Beauty will not come at the call of a legislature, nor will it repeat in England or America its history in Greece. It will come, as always, unannounced, and spring up between the feet of brave and earnest men.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    There is nothing truer than myth: history, in its attempt to “realize” myth, distorts it, stops halfway; when history claims to have “succeeded” this is nothing but humbug and mystification. Everything we dream is “realizable.” Reality does not have to be: it is simply what it is.
    Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)