Structural Chemistry: The Last 50 Years as Seen by an X-ray Crystallographer

Some aspects of the evolution of structural chemistry are described from the personal perspective of a student of Jack Dunitz who started working for a Ph.D. in crystal chemistry in the mid-1960s. The importance and the change of emphasis of X-ray crystal structure determination through the decades is sketched and related to technological advances. Activities beyond standard structure determination by single-crystal and powder diffraction, some of them significantly underdeveloped, are indicated. While crystal structure determination has become an important, if not indispensable, analytical tool supporting the widespread objectives of the synthetic chemists, structural chemistry has also developed a deep physical understanding of the concept of structure at the atomic length scale and enabled the organization of an enormous volume of individual observations based on the notions of chemical bonding.