The Spanish National
Committee
for Crystallography is one of the Spanish
National
Committees whose functions are to represent Spain
within
relevant international scientific
organisations. Specifically, our main commitment is to represent Spain,
participating with the International Union of
Crystallography
(IUCr), and therefore, our National Committee exists
to:
promote
crystallography in Spain and
through the world,
inform
crystallographers in Spain concerning the IUCr activities,
nominate persons to
represent the crystallographers in Spain as delegates to the General
Assemblies of the IUCr, giving them the corresponding information and
guidance,
plan and sponsor
scientific meetings in Spain according to the
objectives of the IUCr.
The Spanish
National Committee for Crystallography (founded by
CSIC) joined the IUCr in 1949, is a Category III
Adhering-Body to the IUCr through the Subdireccion
General de
Organismos y Programas Internacionales (Spanish Ministry of
Science and Technology), having three delegates and three
votes at the
IUCr General Assembly.
The International
Union of
Crystallography (UCr)
is an International Scientific Union. Its objectives are to promote
international cooperation in crystallography and to contribute to all
aspects of crystallography,
to promote international publication of
crystallographic research, to facilitate standardization of methods,
units, nomenclatures and symbols, and to form a focus for the relations
of crystallography to other sciences.
Crystallography is a
branch of science that examines crystals, that is, ordered
matter. Today we know that crystals are made of atoms,
molecules and/or ions that fit together in repeating patterns, called
unit cells, which like bricks stacked in three dimensions form the
crystals. With the crystallographic
tools developed during the 20th century, we
can find out the inner structure of matter, living or inanimate, from
which crystals are formed. To know the inner structure of matter means
to determine the positions of all atoms and how they are linked
together, in many cases forming atomic clusters known as molecules.
To obtain the inner structure of
matter, crystallography uses laboratory X-ray diffraction, but also
synchrotron X-ray, neutron and electron diffraction, so that
crystallographic methods provide a direct measure of the atomic
arrangements of materials: from simple metals up to large protein
complexes.
The atomic structure
of matter generates knowledge that is used by
chemists, physicists,
biologists, and other scientists. This allows us not only to understand
the
properties of matter, but also to modify them for our benefit.
The IUCr web site
provides material of use to classroom educators, and links to external
web sites of educational value, and among them we suggest a general web
site as an introducction
to crystallography written
in both English and
Spanish.