Was Bragg's crystallography too reliant on models?
Some might suggest our models were abstract, but our entire approach was built on empirical evidence. We always let the experiment guide us. The diffraction pattern is not a theoretical construct; it is a direct, observable phenomenon. Our task was to interpret this pattern, to translate its symmetries and intensities into a physical arrangement of atoms. If a proposed atomic model did not perfectly account for the observed diffraction data, then that model had to be revised or discarded. The beauty of crystallography lies precisely in the fact that the observed pattern directly reveals the underlying, physical structure.
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