The colors of copper

The colors of cobalt

For Anne — Ultramarine

rose window at Chartres Cathedral, France

silicon oxygen Composition of Glass - SiO 2 A small piece of glass having local order When fewer than 1 out of 100 Si atoms is replaced by Cobalt, Co, the glass is deep blue. The blue color is due to an impurity in the glass.

Beauty due to Impurity Ruby is corundum with chromium impurity Emerald is beryl with chromium impurity Sapphire is corundum with iron and titanium impurities

Copper metal Verdigris Pigment ground Verdigris Pigment as crystals

A porphyrin

Inorganikers Organikers Claude Monet, Garden at Giverny Ansel Adams, Aspens

Frank Mallory said “Adamantane”. “C 10 H 14 ” “I find it to be a beautiful structure because of its shape and symmetry—the fact that you can trace out four chair-form cyclohexanes. Also it has the same carbon skeleton as diamond.” adamantane a piece of diamond

“I've been thinking about your all weekend! Beauty in Crystallography, huh? It's a difficult thing to put into words because in crystallography, it's all wrapped up with that feeling that you get when you see a structure solving. It's got to do also with the complexity of things like molecules and unit cells and being able to view them in a way that brings out their simplicity.” Pat Carroll, X-ray crystallographer University of Pennsylvania

“When you first see this, you might wonder, ‘Why do they stack like that? Is there an electronic interaction?’ But when you switch to vdW, it's obvious that the two molecules just "fit" nicely together. I call these my "hugging" molecules.” “You first wonder, "Why would those 4 chloroforms cluster there? Is there some kind of electronic interaction?" But when you switch to 100% vdW, you see how they fit into the "bowl" formed by the porphyrin. There would be another porphyrin on either side of the solvents making an infinite sandwich along the c-axis.” Tetrapeptide Hexapeptide Rob Scarrow, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry Haverford College “Structures. It’s neat how the molecules fit together.”

Chem 3d

Chem 3d

Susan White, Professor of Biological Chemistry “What’s beautiful? Any big structure with lots of atoms.” Nitrate Reductase protein

2 porphyrins! the molybdenum!

Roald Hoffmann, Professor of Chemistry, Nobel Laureate my “hero” “Beauty does not reside in simplicity. Nor in complexity. For a molecule or a song, for a ceramic vase or a play, beauty is created out of the labor of human hands and minds. It is to be found, precarious, at some tense edge where symmetry and asymmetry, simplicity and complexity, order and chaos, contend.”

Biosynthesis of Chlorophyll