• Question: Why are we never taught that crystals can do anything more than grow in Science class, because if we were that would make it seem like a much more interesting field of study and boost the number of young people wanting to help you with your work?

    Asked by to Daren, Lynne, Phillip, Simon on 18 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Daren Fearon

      Daren Fearon answered on 18 Jun 2014:

      A lot of the experiments we do with crystals involves expensive, specialised pieces of equipment that you wouldn’t be able to have in a classroom. Although if you ask your teacher, they might be able to tell you more about the things we can do.

      “I’m A Scientist…” is great as it means you students can ask us what we do with crystals and we can try and get you excited about doing work like ours.

      Diamond Light Source (where we all do lots of experiments) sometimes does open days and school visits, if you get the chance to visit they can tell you lots about the amazing things we can do with crystals aswell.

      http://www.diamond.ac.uk/Home/Events/Inside-Diamond—Public-Open-Days.html

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 18 Jun 2014:

      It’s great you think crystals are interesting. The science syllabus has changed a lot even since I was at school (which really wasn’t that long ago!). You guys learn a lot more about the applications of science than we did. Maybe you could ask your teacher to do a special crystal lesson, or to ask somebody to come in and talk to you about it – there are lots of scientists at universities and research departments all around the country who would be happy to come speak to you.

    • Photo: Lynne Thomas

      Lynne Thomas answered on 18 Jun 2014:

      Crystals are really special things as they have a very regular arrangement of atoms and molecules in them arranged in a grid like a 3D brick wall. Because of this, if we shine X-rays on them, we can get a 3D picture of what they look like. You’ll have studied things in science where we know what things look like because people have shone X-rays on a crystal of them. For instance we know that salt is a regular grid of alternating sodium and chlorine ions because they shone X-rays on crystals of it around 100 years ago! This year is actually the International Year of Crystallography because the field of study is about 100 years old. So it has affected how we understand things in Chemistry, Physics and Biology. There is even a machine doing crystallography on the mars curiosity rover right now! One place where you have a crystal but you wouldn’t expect it is in your watch – there is a small crystal of a mineral called quartz and this is what is responsible for your watch keeping time. It vibrates in a very regular way when you apply an electric current over it. Expensive watches have almost perfect crystals in them so keep very good time, but cheaper watches have slightly less perfect crystals in them which are cheaper!

      Because it’s the international year of crystallography, the Royal Society of Chemistry and doing a global experiment on crystallography. It means that you, yourself can take part in a real bit of science research! You can grow your own crystals and then scientifically analyse them and then share your results with the rest of the world and see whether you all agree!
      http://www.rsc.org/learn-chemistry/collections/online-experimentation/collaborative-chemistry/global-experiment-2014
      You can do it in your class or at home!

      You can learn loads more about crystallography on this website that I’ve written with some friends http://learn.crystallography.org.uk

      And there are some really cool youtube videos that show you how crystallography works and why it’s important

    • Photo: Simon Redfern

      Simon Redfern answered on 18 Jun 2014:

      You are right, people are missing out on a great story here. Not only do crystals grow in the classroom, they grow inside planets, and inside animals and people. Magma chambers deep in the Earth are where crystals grow from molten rock to form rocks. And right in the centre of the Earth a giant ball of crystalline iron is growing slowly as the planet solidifies.

      In our body, crystals make up our teeth and our bones. And in some animals other parts of their bodies are made of crystals. Millions of years ago animals called trilobites, that looked a bit like woodlice, roamed the ancient sea floor. Their eyes were made of single crystals of a mineral called calcite – it’s the same stuff that you might find in stalagmites or stalagtites in caves today.

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