science · 28 February 1743 · 281 years ago
birth
Born 28 Feb 1743; died 1 Jun 1822 at age 79.
French mineralogist who was the founder of the science of crystallography through his discovery of the geometrical law of crystallization. In 1781, he saw an accidentally dropped calcite crystal broke into rhombohedral pieces. Deliberately breaking various forms of calcite, he found the same result. He concluded that all the molecules of calcite have the same form and it is only how they are joined together that produces different gross structures. Hence, he suggested that other minerals should show different basic forms. He thought that there were, in fact, six different primitive forms from which all crystals could be derived by being linked in different ways. His theory was able to predict in many cases the correct angles of a crystal face.
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