New and noteworthy on symmetry and solids…

For a couple of years since I got my self interested in computational crystallography, I have been voraciously searching for a nice and updated account of crystallography and rarely found anything worth mentioning so far except for Bradley and Cracknell`s  Mathematical Theory of Symmetry in Solids, but come on…It is rare, hard to find and it was published in 1972! Apparently the physicists, as a community, while never getting tired of stressing the importance of symmetry in condensed matter systems (The so called first law of condensed matter physics is essentially about symmetry breaking…) conspiciously overlooks the structural symmetries.  For instance,from my humble experience there is no graduate level solid state/condensed matter course who rigorously fills this gap at MIT. They just describe the fundamentals of crystallographic indexing, the concept of reciprocal space and pertinent basis construction, some simple prototoypes and that`s it. Also absolutely no mention or whatsoever in how would those symmetries translate into electronic structure and the computation of band structures. I have never seen anyone teaching, at any level, the orbifold notation, cohomology and/or fourier space crystallography. The latter might be hard to integrate into a rather standardized solid state/condensed matter curriculum but a general coverage of the former (that is crystalline symmetries) is still a must. Oh by the way, there is not a single solid state text  in existence that does justice to this topic, not a single one… Ashcroft-Mermin and Marder  both give sketchy accounts of point group symmetry and almost no mention of space groups. Kittel sucks in this aspect as well (as it does in many cases expect for the treatment of reciprocal space maybe) and basically skips it. Grosso & Parravicini, as my favourite text as “the” long waited replacement to Ascroft-Mermin at the moment also simply ignores any mentioning of symmetry. Animalu(treats groups in an appendix) and Kaxiras are both better than the rest but does not fill the particular gap in its entirety. So physicists side is quite hopeless it seems! Now there have been two recent books published and when read together, they perfectly fill the absence of nice texts at least from more of a materials scientists point of view. First one is by Gregory Rohrer , Structure and Bonding in Crystalline Materials and does a very nice job of introducing symmetries and their effect on the deciphering of x-ray data as well as some basic structural phenomena like the bonding and stability. But where it shines mostly is its nice coverage of structure prototypes in detail which is extremely relevant to the current trend of materials informatics and structure prediction.The other book is by McHenry and De Graef and bears the title; Structure of Materials: An Introduction to Crystallography, Diffraction and Symmetry. This is even a deeper book in its coverage of symmetry and group theory. It is cogently written, very well illustrated and needless to say rather complete(although not as mathematical as Bradley & Cracknell).  So it looks like the only viable option is to supplement solid state readings with these two praiseworthy recent launches and personally build the missing connections…. But I salute the authors, all of whom are from Carnegie Mellon for their efforts in both cases, while reserving my disappointment with the book market on solid state theory which is mostly populated with reduntant books. I wish I could see why.

Fazlur Kahn`s Legacy

 

    

Very few people seem to remember (or even know) the name but we actually owe him a lot due to his pioneering structural designs on supertall skyscrapers, including my all time favorite Sears Tower in Chicago (Bruce Graham(Skidmore Owings and Merrel), 1974).  At the heart of his contributions lie the tubular structural systems (bundled, trussed etc.). At certain points might fundamentally limit architectural exploration but their merits more than compensate everything that might have been taken away from the architect this way.  Moreover, we have to analyze skyscrapers with their relation to the city skyline as in a city like Chicago the building-surrounding relation is not assessed through the street level but through the changes in city’s skyline cluster. Besides, super tall buildings like Sears tower are not perceived as externally introduced artifacts (or substitutional defects let`s say ) when the pertinent city has identified itself with vertical development, again the notable examples being Chicago and the New York City. A simple formed black glass facated skyscraper like the Seagram building (Mies van der Rohe,1957) might be absurd in Dublin, but in New York, it becomes a hallmark of modernism and elegance. While we fundamentally analyze and perceive skyscrapers as reduced shapes like boxes; such a reductionist approach unveils the importance of one thing, the proper blending of right proportions with geometry. An apt illustration of this is the John Hancock tower in Chicago. No building does look higher than the “Big John”; in this case the X shaped exoskeletal cage along with a continuously tightening anodized aluminum silhouette creates a very unique (and frigtening!) effect for the people looking upside. This form has essentially been guided by and finalized  in accordance with Fazlur Kahn`s novel designs. I personally haven’t seen anything quite like that. Tubular design also serves another purpose; as much as you take out structural elements to the outside there will be more undivided room left for the design of office and/or residential space. And that gives you a lot; like the highest indoor swimming pool in the world (44th floor of the John Hancock bulding), which is undeniably a cool thing. With all these said, we can confidently reckon that Fazlur Rahman Kahn still remains unchallenged among civil engineers with his impact on the skyscraper design in provoking the quintessential architectural route.

 

Blaschka Glass Flower Collection

I have first heard of Blaschka Glass Flower collection in a small article from Scientific American. Irrespective of my late acquaintance with them, they apparently have attracted considerable  popular and scholarly attention  for almost a century so I had to go. And I didn’t have any excuse for postponing my long scheduled visit to the Harvard Museum of Natural History as it was now in close proximity of my house in East Cambridge. First of all, it was considerably and suprisingly better than what I  expected and honestly I had tuned my expectations rather high. To my delight I saw that the glass replicas were not limited to the real life samples of different plants but extend to the organs of flowers like the pistils(gynoecium) and stamen(androecium). Moreover, in most cases there were several scaled cross sections of those organs. It was sheer beauty what I have experienced there and I kneeled before the uncompromising dedication to nature`s original designs as well as the incredible glass craftmanship involved in. And I should know how to judge this, as all my childhood has been around Sisecam`s (the major glass producer of Turkey) production space due to my father`s position there. I went to the museum to take some photographs to document my visit but the poor illumination, the tight juxtaposition of different species and the worn out glass encapsulations were proving to be major obstacles and impeding my work in a concerted fashion. But the biggest drawback was on my side, my Nikon S-6 (which is not even a D-SLR), nothwitstanding it`s cool design and cool electronic features like the built-in wi-fi, rarely results in  good photographical results expecially for shots from close distances. So I will return back later this week with Kerem`s old school 35mm Nikon to compansate my first visit. However,  later this afternoon, using the poorly taken photographs from the collection as templates (but not merely playing on the with the tools in the program instead  I actually drew everything by myself), I could manage to come up with some cool looking pop-art-like creations through Adobe Illustrator; well much alike what you would buy from an Urban Outfitters store for your house/dorm. Anyway, I might actually scale up some these to put into my house as well.

 

 

 

  

Orhan Pamuk and the New Yorker

New Yorker is one of my personal obessions and pretty much the only Conde-Nast publication which  I can`t resist to read on a weekly basis albeit being less sensational than Vanity Fair or the Vogue (I still quite like these two magazines and the corresponding sensational stuff though…). Recently, Orhan Pamuk`s translated writings have repeatedly appeared on couple of different occasions and I hoped  I would see him on a regular basis. Although it isn’t a common  practice for New Yorker to spare a regular slot for a non-staff writer, I wouldn’t be unhappy to see that as a first. As Pamuk is physically apart from Istanbul, we would like to see what he has to say as an aspiring New Yorker. Details of his diurnal routine is unknown to me apart from the fact that he is teaching at Columbia (formerly he has taught at Columbia spanning the period 1985-1988) and he has bought a house near the campus¹ but I would rather follow him through literary output anyway. Speaking of his New York life it was quite a news that he has bought an apartment on the 351 Riverside Drive which was designed by William Tuthill who has mainly gathered his reputation as the architect of the famous Carnegie Hall. However there is another Turkish connection to this story and an interesting one; William Tuthill has also been known as the achitect of the Schinasi (apparently derived from “Sinasi” in Turkish ) Manor, an edifice whose owner was an immigrant Jewish tobacco merchant originally from the Aegean town of Manisa².  Turning back to his home, I can say that our personal tastes; both in terms of the choice of location and pure architectural context greatly overlaps, albeit there is no such overlap in terms of his financial prowess and my lackthereof!But I am pretty happy both on behalf of him and for myself as an avid reader after he moved (albeit not in a permanent manner, I guess…) because much alike all great writers, he writes the city he is from, and until now it has been Istanbul. Now that he is partly becoming a New Yorker we can expect some totally new output because New York City is a rather fertile ground for creativity. I honestly don`t think that he is in any sort of exile (I think he doesn’t perceive himself that way too) as a lot of people tend to think and romanticize, so comparing him to the later years of James Joyce and making predictions wouldn’t be that relevant  in my opinion.  At this point there might arise a problem though, if he writes quickly so as not to leave any noticeable gap with his former works and his new launch, the novel might not turn out to be that great because in this sceneraio, he won’t have been fused with his new hometown and fully soaked up with the bringings of this new culture. But even if this is true, can we wait? Are we willing to wait that long? Probably not in general and definitely not for myself. So my humble suggestion would be that he could get started via short works that might for instance be published  in the New Yorker`s fiction section. This is of course with the understanding that I have no idea on the inner-workings of the magazine and the pertinent publishing procedures. There is also the issue that it is becoming less of a literary magazine than it was in 60-70 years ago (I just happened to check on very old issues from 1929 and there were around 4-5 fictions published on a single issue.)

1) http://www.observer.com/2007/sold-his-name-orhan-nobel-novelist-pamuk-buys-riverside-1-8-m

2) The Marble Manor That Turkish Tobacco Built” Christopher Gray, The New York Times, May 4, 1997