David Watkin suggested that members might like to learn something of the
work of Professor Powell, whose papers have recently been catalogued by the
National Cataloguing Unit for the Archives of Contemporary Scientists
(NCUACS). The following extract from their recent report is reproduced here
by their permission. The cataloguing of Professor Powell's papers was
undertaken by the Unit at the University of Bath for deposit in the Bodleian
Library, Oxford. I have asked them for an article for a future issue on
other crystallographers in their catalogues.
Powell, Herbert Marcus
(Chemical crystallography), NCUACS catalogue no.58/1/96,42 pp.,
deposited in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
The papers were received in 1992 from Mrs Primrose Powell, widow, through
the good offices of Dr C.K. Prout, Chemical Crystallography Laboratory, Oxford.
BIOGRAPHICAL
Herbert Marcus Powell was born in 1906. He was educated at Henry VIII School, Coventry, and won a scholarship to St John's College, Oxford where he took a first in Chemistry in 1928. Powell made his whole career at Oxford University where he pioneered x-ray crystallography. Dorothy Hodgkin (Nobel Laureate Chemistry 1964) was his first research student. He went on to become first University Demonstrator and then in 1944 Reader in Chemical Crystallography and Head of the Chemical Crystallography Laboratory, before being given a Personal Chair in 1963. Powell became a Professorial Fellow of Hertford College, Oxford in 1963. He retired from his Chair in 1974.
Powell's research field was the determination of crystal structures by x-ray diffraction methods, especially structures with applications to chemical problems, such as the stereochemistry of the elements, metal-metal bonding, the nature of intermolecular compounds and some aspects of optical activity. He also originated and named a new class of molecular compounds (clathrates) in which one atom or molecule is enclosed in a cage formed by others. Hence he was able to prepare stable molecular compounds of inert gas elements and devise the method of separating mirror image molecules by trapping them in left or right handed molecular cavities.
Powell was an excellent linguist with particular accomplishments in Russian and Chinese. In 1960 he published a paper on how to read Japanese chemical papers without having to learn the language, which aroused great interest amongst Western chemists. He also addressed questions of language representation, seeking to represent linguistic communication by a system of visual symbols. Amongst Powell's other interests was writing short stories and other fiction.
Powell's scientific achievements were recognised by his election to the Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1953.
DESCRIPTION OF COLLECTION
Biographical material includes obituaries, curricula vitae and Powell's
autobiographical drafts principally relating to his family background and
school and university education. There are also examples of his short
stories and other fiction. Oxford University material includes Powell's
undergraduate notebooks and his notes on the lectures of
F. Soddy, C.N.
Hinshelwood, J.W.J. Taylor and D.L. Chapman, for 1925 and 1926. Chemical
Crystallography material is not extensive but includes a small number of
papers from or relating to Dorothy Hodgkin and Powell's historical notes on
the development of chemical crystallography at Oxford. Powell's lecture
notes were found in considerable disorder but cover an extended period from
1928 and such topics as crystal chemistry and molecular compounds.
Powell's research is represented by laboratory notebooks covering the early
part of his career from 1928 to about 1940, including a notebook with
lecture notes made during a visit by Powell to the Mineralogy Institute of
the University of Leipzig in 1930. There are also later notes and drafts of
1950s work on inert gases, tri-o-thymotide, etc. There are drafts of some of
Powell's invitation and publication lectures 1953-1968 and of his scientific
papers 1942-1966, including drafts and correspondence relating to his 1960
paper on Japanese chemical writing and his 1966 spoof paper on colour in
chemistry. There are also biographical accounts of colleagues in
crystallography and chemistry including early recollections of Dorothy
Hodgkin at Oxford and drafts for texts by Powell of a general or popular
scientific nature. A film on crystal structure made by the Imperial Chemical
Industries (ICI) Film Unit in collaboration with Powell is documented by
scripts, drafts and correspondence. Visits and conferences material covers
the period 1948-1974. Particularly well documented is his 1962 visit to
China as a member of a Royal Society delegation to the Academia Sinica,
Peking. There are also papers relating to visits to Roumania in 1964 and
Russia in 1966 and 1969. Powell's linguistic interests are documented by
notes and drafts on his work on language representation. There are also
drafts for a course on learning Russian prepared with the scientific
student in mind. Scientific correspondence is not extensive. There is,
however, an alphabetical sequence of principal correspondents including
scientific colleagues such as W. Baker, F.G. Mann and R.S. Nyholm and
industrial concerns interested in the applications of Powell's work such as
the British Oxygen Company, Imperial Chemical Industries and Johnson,
Matthey & Company.
BCA Editor's Note: he was always known as 'Tiny' to his friends
and colleagues
since he was a small man.
Bela Szigeti 1912 - 1996
Bela Szigeti was born in Hungary in 1912; educated in Switzerland, he gained a Ph.D in Physical Chemistry from the University of Zurich, and came to England in 1939. After the war he worked in theoretical physics at Bristol University where he derived two key relations (now known as the Szigeti relations) between the dielectric, elastic and vibrational properties of ionic crystalline solids. Moving to Liverpool, he worked on the effects of impurities on the properties of crystals, and continued this work in the University of Reading between 1962 and 1977. He worked with Roy Leigh on studies prompted by experimental work there on vibrational properties of impurities in diamond and semi-conducting crystals. He also demonstrated the limitations of information about vibrations in perfect crystals obtained from neutron scattering experiments.
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