CRYSTALLOGENESIS AND MINERALOGY (TO COMMEMORATE THE 100~(TH) ANNIVERSARY OF G. G. LAEMMLEIN BIRTHDAY)

摘要

I do not know Prof. Laemmlein personally. I never met him, and I could not read his publications thoroughly, since he published his papers only in Russian, which I can not read. Yet, I feel it my great honor and pleasure to have given this opportunity to say a word of toast on this occasion commemorating his 100~(th) anniversary, since I fell a strong affinity to him as a scientist or a natural philosopher. I have a feeling that we have walked on the same route, have had similar way of thinking and attitude toward nature. This impression has been accumulated through conversation with my respect friend Prof. Chernov, who got his first job as a research assistant of Laemmlein. Alex and I meet quite often at international conferences on crystal growth or related topics. He often told me about his association with laemmlein, about Laemmlein's scientific contributions and carriers, and even about his personal life. Alex also gave me a book of 《Selected Papers by Laemmlein》. Although all papers are in Russian, I could glimpse of what Prof. Laemmlein wanted to understand, and how he attacked the problems. He was interested not in equilibrium thermodynamics, neither in structural crystallography, but in kinetics. It seems to me that he wanted to understand how and through what process cosmos emerges or is created in chaotic ambient phases, and how the process influences morphology, perfection, homogeneity and property of a crystal. He paid close attention to morphological aspects of crystals to understand their origins and mechanisms, not only bulk polyhedral morphology but also surface microtopography. He observed growth spirals on SiC crystals, earlier than Frank's spiral growth theory. He was certainly one of the pioneer or a person to revive the importance of the concept of kinetics in the field of mineralogy, since during these days more attention was paid to structural crystallography and equilibrium thermodynamics. In Socialist countries, however, there were more scientists than in Western countries, who paid closer attention to kinetic problems. The developed application sides of knowledge of kinetics, such as ontogeny of minerals by Grigoriev and ore prospecting based on typomorphism. These activities are unfortunately not well known among or not well informed to scientific communities in the Western countries, before the publication of Ivan Kostov's book on Crystal Habit of Minerals.