Bernal Lecture 2025: The Harvest of an eclectic Mind скачать в хорошем качестве

Bernal Lecture 2025: The Harvest of an eclectic Mind

Bernal Lecture 2025: The Harvest of an eclectic Mind: Alan Mackay and the Rewriting of the Book of Crystallography Recorded on 23 September 2025 Alan Mackay, who joined Bernal’s laboratory some 75 years ago, built a career on challenging scientific orthodoxy. Inspired by Bernal, he widened the scope of crystallography to encompass the broader science of structures. His refusal to accept the crystallographic ban on 5-fold symmetry led not only to the Mackay icosahedron—widely influential across disciplines—but also to his prediction of quasicrystals, later confirmed experimentally and honoured with a Nobel Prize. This year’s Bernal Lecture by Professor John Finney situated Mackay’s remarkable scientific achievements, and other products of his wide-ranging mind, within the unique intellectual environment of Bernal’s laboratory—an environment that, sadly, could not be replicated today.