Crystals In The Isometric System

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What is a crystal? Crystals are made up of elements which form amd there molecules form a certain pattern. For example, a volcano happens to erupts and magma flows out to the surface of the earth As the magma runs outward then slowly starts to cool. crystals may develop. This is call crystallization. From this occurring expensive crystal like rubies and diamonds are form, sometimes even emeralds. Crystals can have many different shape from the result of the type of molecules and atoms present in forming the crystals. Crystals can be put into thirty-two crystal classes then further put into a total of six systems.. Isometric System Crystals in the Isometric system, also referred as the cubic system, has the largest amount of symmetry when compared to the rest of the crystal systems. There is only one known figure in our geometric structure universe with the most perfect symmetry. That figure is known as the sphere. An indefinite amount of plane symmetry passes throughout its center point. Its number of axes is also indefinite. No matter how much you spin it on any of its endless amount of axes, the sphere will always appear to me the same. None of the crystal systems can compare to the symmetry that of a sphere, but there is one that comes relatively close. Crystals in the Isometric or Cubic system are quickly noticeable because many of its forms resemble that of a sphere, well at least its circularity, particularly when the faces of the crystal are curved or rounded because of the large amount of symmetry that appears in the Isometric system. Isometric Forms There are seven cubic forms or isometric forms. In these forms the three crystallographic axes are also the four fold rotation. In this system there are also four a... ... middle of paper ... ...et of symmetries. One might say that a crystal have a certain set of point symmetry elements but there are many symmetry elements such as center of symmetry, rotation axis’s, and mirror planes. The crystal class can be defined by its point symmetry, mathematically defined as point group. Before writing this paper, I wonder what a point group was and for that matter what was a group. After doing research I found that the word group branches off from a math theory called the Group Theory. The Group Theory is generally an algebraic structure. In a group there is a group of elements, these elements could consist of anything, but most of the time it consists of numbers. There is also an operation like subtraction, multiplication, addition or division; it could also be some weird operation. There for any elements from a set can be put together or combined by an operation.

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