How were structure factors calculated up to the mid 1950's

[L. Cranswick]

Sent on behalf of Stan Nyburg:  stanley.nyburg at kcl.ac.uk
 http://www.ch.kcl.ac.uk/kclchem2/academic/asscn1.htm

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Dear All,

Can anyone provide information how structure factors 
were calculated up to the mid 1950's?

For a book chapter on the history of a chemistry department;
neither the author (who did crystallography in the 1940's)
nor the reviewer of the history (myself) who started 
performing crystallography in 1945 to the present, has any 
memory on how structure factors were actually calculated
during that time.

In page 101 of The Determination of Crystal Structures by
Lipson and Cochran, (1953, London, G. Bell and Sons)
it mentions strip methods of computing structure factors.  
But I have no memory of having used such strips back then,
and feel that there must have been another method that
was commonly used.

Thanks in advance,

Stan Nyburg


-- 
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Lachlan M. D. Cranswick

Collaborative Computational Project No 14 (CCP14)
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