William Lawrence Bragg: the pioneer of X-ray crystallography and his pervasive influence

Abstract

A new age dawned when 22-year-old William Lawrence Bragg realized that the observations of X-ray diffraction by a crystal can be interpreted very simply as arising from the reflection of the X-rays by planes of atoms in the crystal. In the 100 years since this insight X-ray diffraction has transformed chemistry, mineralogy, metallurgy, and, most recently, biology.