My life and the world of crystals

This is an account of my life and my contributions to crystallography which have led to my receiving the 2015 Aminoff Prize. Periods discussed in this article are childhood influences, formal training at Harvard, life as an independent researcher at Bell Labs, starting the academic routine at Illinois and then London. Three major discoveries are presented in the form of anecdotes, on the silicon 7 × 7 structure, on crystal truncation rods and coherent x-ray diffraction. Much of my work has centered on the need for developing the instrumentation behind the intellectual steps, such as beamlines at the Brookhaven, Argonne, and Diamond synchrotron radiation facilities. This trend continues with the emergence of new possibilities for crystallography using x-ray free-electron lasers.