Herbert Aaron Hauptman, the mathematician who won Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his outstanding contribution to X-ray Crystallography passed away. Hauptman was the first to apply rigours mathematical methods for crystal structure determination with X-ray Diffraction (XRD). The Hauptman-Karle method, popularly known as The Direct Method in XRD, took the guess work out of the X-ray analysis and speed up the structure determination of complex proteins, hormones, antibiotics, vitamins and geological minerals. Continue reading →