Nature Milestones are special supplements that aim to highlight the remarkable achievements that have shaped a given field. Each breakthrough is covered in a short Milestone article written by an editor from Nature Publishing Group. The landmark discovery is discussed in the context of the prevailing concepts of the time and our current knowledge of the field.
Nature Milestones in Crystallography, a collaborative effort between Nature, Nature Materials, Nature Nanotechnology and Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, is the eleventh supplement in the series and is timed to coincide with the celebration of the 2014 International Year of Crystallography. Exactly 100 years ago, Max von Laue received the Nobel Prize in Physics “for his discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals”. Since that discovery, crystallography has become an essential tool of investigation throughout the sciences, largely because it provides conclusive information on molecular structure down to the atomic level.
It is difficult to think of a field as unbounded by scientific disciplines as crystallography, and it is impossible to encompass all of its influential developments in a single supplement. However, with the help of our advisors, we have selected 25 topics that highlight the breadth of crystallography and provide a taste of how central it has been in shaping our current understanding of physics, chemistry and biology. We have also sought to emphasize the collaborative nature of the field, by touching on the establishment of open crystallographic databases and the development of large-scale facilities for X-ray and neutron diffraction experiments. Inevitably, many topics, some of which led to Nobel Prizes, remain unmentioned: the Compton effect, the structural determination of diboranes, penicillin and vitamin B12, time-resolved crystallography and insights crucial to the development of modern condensed-matter physics — to name but a few. But a selection had to be made, and we hope that Nature Milestones in Crystallography will prove an enriching reflection on the history of the field, and one that inspires further reading.
In addition to the Milestone articles, the supplement includes a Timeline, which provides a chronology of key events and a reprinted Collection of relevant articles from Nature. The Milestones website also includes an extensive Library of material from across Nature Publishing Group. The selected Library articles will be available free for six months from 17 July 2014.
Finally, we would like to extend our sincere thanks to our advisors and to acknowledge the support of the worldwide network of neutron and X-ray sources, as well as the associated society, the International Union of Crystallography, in helping to distribute the supplement to the wider research community. As always, Nature Publishing Group carries sole responsibility for all editorial content.
