This graduate-level textbook deals with different aspects of plane mirrors and mirror-related symmetries. It provides us with some new ways of understanding symmetries in crystals and the mirror combination schemes. The inclusion of topics such as the Wigner-Seitz unit cell, reciprocal lattice, Brillouin zones, diffraction of crystals, etc., based on the mirror combination scheme, are extremely helpful in understanding many other concepts in crystallography. A mirror is the only fundamental symmetry in crystals, and all other permissible symmetries in crystalline solids can be derived from suitable combinations of mirrors, called derived symmetries. A rudimentary knowledge of symmetry in crystallography is essential to students, researchers, and professionals in many subjects in science and technology: physics, chemistry, mathematics, molecular biology, geology, metallurgy, and particularly materials science and mineralogy.

Autorentext

M. A. Wahab is Former Professor and Head of the Department of Physics, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India, where he joined as Lecturer in 1985. Earlier, he served as Lecturer at the P. G. Department of Physics and Electronics, University of Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, India, from 1981. During these years, he taught electrodynamics, statistical mechanics, theory of relativity, advanced solid-state physics, crystallography, physics of materials, growth and imperfections of materials, and general solid-state physics. He completed his Ph.D. (Physics) from the University of Delhi, India, and M.Sc. (Physics) from Aligarh Muslim University, India. He has also contributed more than 100 research papers to several journals of repute and supervised 15 Ph.D. theses during his career at Jamia Millia Islamia. He has published the discovery of hexagonal close packing (HCP) and rhombohedral close packing (RCP) as the two new space lattices, along with his son (Mr. Khurram Mujtaba Wahab), as theirfirst joint paper after his retirement.