Arthur Lindo Patterson (23 July 1902,

Nelson, New Zealand Nelson () is a List of cities in New Zealand, city and Districts of New Zealand, unitary authority on the eastern shores of Tasman Bay at the top of the South Island of New Zealand. It is the oldest city in the South Island and the second-old ...

– 6 November 1966,

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

) was a pioneering British X-ray crystallographer. Patterson was born to British parents in New Zealand in 1902. Shortly afterwards the family moved to Montreal, Canada and later to London, England. In 1920 Patterson moved to Canada for college at

McGill University McGill University (French: Université McGill) is an English-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill University, Vol. I. For the Advancement of Learning, ...

, Montreal. Firstly he concentrated on Mathematics and but then changed his major to Physics. He received his bachelor's degree in 1923 and a master's in 1924. His master's thesis was on the production of hard X-rays by interaction of

radium Radium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Ra and atomic number 88. It is the sixth element in alkaline earth metal, group 2 of the periodic table, also known as the alkaline earth metals. Pure radium is silvery-white, ...

β rays with solids. From 1924 to 1926 he worked in London in the laboratory of W. H. Bragg, where he learnt the art of crystal structure analysis. In 1926 Patterson moved to the

Kaiser Wilhelm Institute The Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Advancement of Science () was a German scientific institution established in the German Empire in 1911. Its functions were taken over by the Max Planck Society. The Kaiser Wilhelm Society was an umbrella organi ...

for Fibrous Materials Chemistry (later the Fritz Haber Institute) in the Dahlem neighbourhood of Berlin, where he worked on the X-ray crystallography of

cellulose Cellulose is an organic compound with the chemical formula, formula , a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to many thousands of glycosidic bond, β(1→4) linked glucose, D-glucose units. Cellulose is an important s ...

fibres. In Berlin he had the fortune to meet the scientific elite of the time, which included

Max von Laue Max Theodor Felix von Laue (; 9 October 1879 – 24 April 1960) was a German physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1914 "for his discovery of the X-ray diffraction, diffraction of X-rays by crystals". In addition to his scientifi ...

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

Max Planck Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (; ; 23 April 1858 – 4 October 1947) was a German Theoretical physics, theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quantum, quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918. Planck made many substantial con ...

Walther Nernst Walther Hermann Nernst (; 25 June 1864 – 18 November 1941) was a German physical chemist known for his work in thermodynamics, physical chemistry, electrochemistry, and solid-state physics. His formulation of the Nernst heat theorem helped ...

Hans Bethe Hans Albrecht Eduard Bethe (; ; July 2, 1906 – March 6, 2005) was a German-American physicist who made major contributions to nuclear physics, astrophysics, quantum electrodynamics and solid-state physics, and received the Nobel Prize in Physi ...

Otto Hahn Otto Hahn (; 8 March 1879 – 28 July 1968) was a German chemist who was a pioneer in the field of radiochemistry. He is referred to as the father of nuclear chemistry and discoverer of nuclear fission, the science behind nuclear reactors and ...

Lise Meitner Elise Lise Meitner ( ; ; 7 November 1878 – 27 October 1968) was an Austrian-Swedish nuclear physicist who was instrumental in the discovery of nuclear fission. After completing her doctoral research in 1906, Meitner became the second woman ...

and Peter Pringsheim. In 1927 he returned to McGill, finishing his work for the PhD degree in 1928. From 1933 to 1946, Patterson was a visiting researcher in the laboratory of Bertram Eugene Warren (1902–1991) at MIT. It was during this time that he published his famous function, now called the

Patterson function The Patterson function is used to solve the phase problem in X-ray crystallography X-ray crystallography is the experimental science of determining the atomic and molecular structure of a crystal, in which the crystalline structure causes a beam ...

, which subsequently developed into an extremely important theoretical tool in X-ray crystal structure analysis, especially when one or more heavy atoms are present in the structure. From 1936 to 1949, he taught at

Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh language, Welsh: ) is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as a ...

, and from 1949 to 1966, he was a faculty member at the Institute for Cancer Research, now the

Fox Chase Cancer Center Fox Chase Cancer Center is a National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center research facility and hospital located in the Fox Chase section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. The main facilities of the center are l ...

in Philadelphia.

Achievements

His work led to some of the first important contributions to the theory of particle-size line broadening. In 1934, while at

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

, he developed a method of solving

crystal structure In crystallography, crystal structure is a description of ordered arrangement of atoms, ions, or molecules in a crystalline material. Ordered structures occur from intrinsic nature of constituent particles to form symmetric patterns that repeat ...

s, the

, which involves the summing of the

Fourier series A Fourier series () is an Series expansion, expansion of a periodic function into a sum of trigonometric functions. The Fourier series is an example of a trigonometric series. By expressing a function as a sum of sines and cosines, many problems ...

in two and three dimensions. In addition he became concerned about the problem of uniqueness of the deconvolution of the Patterson function and was able to show that under some conditions several different atomic arrangements — homometric structures — could exist that would give the same Patterson function and therefore the same intensities in

reciprocal space Reciprocal lattice is a concept associated with solids with translational symmetry which plays a major role in many areas such as X-ray diffraction, X-ray and Electron diffraction, electron diffraction as well as the Electronic band structure, e ...

References

External links

His obituary in Acta Crystallographica

Achievements

References

External links

See also