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Axel Vilhelmovich Gadolin
Аксель Вильгельмович Гадолин
Born	(1828-06-12)June 12, 1828 Somero, Grand Duchy of Finland
Died	December 15, 1892(1892-12-15) (aged 64) Saint Petersburg, Russia
Buried	Helsingfors, Finland
Allegiance	Imperial Russia
Branch	Artillery
Rank	Lieutenant General 1876
Awards	Lomonosov Prize 1868 Saint Petersburg University Doctor of mineralogy 1869 St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences Academician 1890
Spouse(s)	Fanny Elisabeth von Wendt (1847–1924)
Known for	Deriving the 32 crystallographic point groups using stereographic projection
Scientific career
Fields	Mineralogy, crystallography
Institutions	Mikhailov Artillery Academy Lecturer 1849, Professor 1866 Saint Petersburg Institute of Technology Professor 1872

Axel Vilhelmovich Gadolin (Russian: Аксель Вильгельмович Гадолин; 12 June 1828 – 15 December 1892) was a Finnish/Russian lieutenant general, and also a scientist in the field of artillery, metallurgy, mineralogy and crystallography. Gadolin was a professor at the Mikhailov Artillery Academy and the Saint Petersburg Institute of Technology, doctor of mineralogy from Saint Petersburg University, and academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. He was awarded the Lomonosov Prize in 1868 for his work on crystallographic point groups.

Career

Gadolin was born in Somero in the Grand Duchy of Finland on 12 June 1828. He was the nephew of the chemist Johan Gadolin.

Gadolin combined his military career with a scientific career in mineralogy, crystallography, and artillery sciences. Gadolin received his initial education at the Finnish Cadet School. In 1847 he was a second lieutenant in the Russian artillery service. Gadolin graduated from the Mikhailov Artillery Academy in 1849 and remained their to teach; his initial appointment was as a lecturer in physics. He was appointed director of the artillery school in 1856 (and promoted to captain), and then professor in 1866. In 1859 he was promoted to colonel, and in 1866 to major general. While at the artillery school he developed techniques for building high velocity canons, which significantly increased the range that a shell could be propelled.

In 1869 he was awarded an honorary doctorate of mineralogy by the council of Saint Petersburg University. In 1872 he became professor at Saint Petersburg Institute of Technology. Gadolin was promoted to lieutenant general in 1876.

Works

Gadolin published in the fields of artillery, mechanical engineering, metallurgy, mineralogy and crystallography.

Gadolin's most famous scientific work is entitled Deduction of all Crystallographic Systems and their Subdivisions by Means of a Single General Principle. It was first published in Russian in 1867, reprinted in 1954, translated into French in 1871, and German in 1896.

In this work Gadolin used the law of rational indices to prove that only 2-, 3-, 4-, and 6-fold axes are possible in crystals. He showed that it is possible to derive all the crystallographically possible polyhedra by studying how the elements of symmetry can be combined. Gadolin showed that the resulting polyhedra can be divided into 32 classes varying by symmetry. Gadolin stated that two crystals should belong to the same class if they have the same symmetry elements, identically disposed. This is the foundation of the modern classification into geometric crystal classes. Although he predicted 32 crystal classes, Gadolin found only 20 examples in nature. Gadolin work was often cited as the most important source for the systematic derivation of the crystal classes without using the concepts of group theory.

Moritz Ludwig Frankenheim in 1826 and Johann F. C. Hessel in 1830 had found the 32 crystal classes. Gadolin, who was unaware of the work of his predecessors, found them independently using stereographic projection to represent the symmetry elements of the 32 groups. Gadolin's work had a clarity that attracted widespread attention, and caused Hessel's earlier work to be neglected. Gadolin influenced the later crystallographic work of Paul Groth.

In 1883 Evgraf Fedorov completed his Elements of the theory of figures; Gadolin assisted in its eventual publication in 1885. Fedorov and Arthur Moritz Schoenflies added new symmetry elements such as glide reflection to those considered by Gadolin; using these new symmetry elements they enumerated the 230 space groups in three dimensions in 1891.

Gadolin's mineral collection is held at the Finnish Museum of Natural History.

Honours and awards

Military

Gadolin was the recipient of numerous military awards.

• Order of Saint Anna, 3rd class, 1859; 2nd class, 1864; 1st class 1872
• Order of St. Vladimir, 4th class 1862; 3rd class 1868; 2nd class 1875
• Legion of Honour, commander (3rd class), 1867 (France)
• Order of Saint Stanislaus, 1st class, 1870
• Order of St. George, 4th class, 1871
• Order of the White Eagle, 1879
• Order of Saint Alexander Nevsky, 1884
• Order of the Sword, commander grand cross (1st class), 1885 (Sweden)

Academic

• Lomonosov Prize, 1868 for his work on crystallographic point groups
• Saint Petersburg University, honorary doctorate of mineralogy, 1869
• St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, corresponding member, 1873; extraordinary academician, 1875; full academician, 1890
• The mineral Axelite was named in honour of Axel Gadolin.

References

1. Larman, Emil Karlovich (1969). Аксель Вильгельмович Гадолин 1828-1892 [Axel Vilhelmovich Gadolin 1828-1892] (in Russian). Moscow: Nauka. p. 73.
2. ^ Schuh, Curtis P. "Gadolin, Aksel' Vil'gel'movich (1828 – 1892)". Mineralogy and Crystallography: An Annotated Biobibliography of Books Published 1469 to 1919. Vol. 1. pp. 560–561. Archived from the original on 25 August 2007. Retrieved 24 December 2024.
3. ^ Alexandrovich, E. (1914). "Gadolin, Axel Vilhelmovich". Russian Biographical Dictionary (in Russian). Vol. 4. Imperial Russian Historical Society. pp. 103–106. Retrieved 23 December 2024.
4. Gadolin, Axel V. (1867). "Вывод всеч кристаллографиц̌ескич систем и ич подразделений из одного обс̌ц̌его нац̌ала" [Deduction of all Crystallographic Systems and their Subdivisions by Means of a Single General Principle]. Ann. Imp. St Petersburg Mineral. Soc, Ser. 2 (in Russian). 4: 112–200.
5. Gadolin, Axel V. (1954). Вывод всеч кристаллографиц̌ескич систем и ич подразделений из одного обс̌ц̌его нац̌ала (in Russian). Leningrad: Akademiia Nauk SSSR.
6. ^ Gadolin, Axel V. (1871). "Memoire sur la déduction d'un seul principe de tous les systèmes cristallographiques avec leurs subdivisions". Acta Societatis Scientiarum Fennicae Helsingfors (in French). 9: 1–71. Retrieved 24 December 2024.
7. Gadolin, Axel V. (1896). Groth, P. (ed.). Abhandlung über die Herleitung aller krystallographischer Systeme, mit ihren Unterabtheilungen aus einem einzigen Prinzipe. Ostwald's Klassiker der exakten Wissenschaften (in German). Vol. 75. Leipzig: Engelmann. Retrieved 24 December 2024.
8. Marshall, Hugh (7 March 1898). "Note on the Axes of Symmetry which are Crystallographically possible". Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 22: 62–65. doi:10.1017/S0370164600050999. Retrieved 24 December 2024.
9. Senechal, Marjorie (1990). "Brief history of geometrical crystallography". In Lima-de-Faria, J. (ed.). Historical atlas of crystallography. Dordrecht ; Boston: Published for International Union of Crystallography by Kluwer Academic Publishers. p. 47. ISBN 079230649X. Retrieved 24 December 2024.
10. Kahr, Bart; Shtukenberg, Alexander G. (19 September 2012). "Histories of Crystallography by Shafranovskii and Schuh". Recent Advances in Crystallography: 1–35. doi:10.5772/48789. ISBN 978-953-51-0754-5. Retrieved 25 December 2024.
11. Barlow, W.; Miers, H. A. (1901). "The Structure of Crystals". Report of The Seventy-First Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. London: John Murray. pp. 309–310. Retrieved 2 January 2025.
12. ^ Scholz, Erhard (1989). Symmetrie, Gruppe, Dualität (in German). Basel Boston Berlin: Birkhäuser. ISBN 3764319747.
13. Burckhardt, Johann Jakob (1988). "Die stereographische Projektion der 32 Kristallklassen - Neumann, Miller, Gadolin". Die Symmetrie der Kristalle: Von René-Just Haüy zur kristallographischen Schule in Zürich (in German). Basel s.l: Birkhäuser Basel. p. 59. ISBN 9783034860284.
14. Whitlock, Herbert P. (1934). "A century of progress in crystallography" (PDF). American Mineralogist. 19 (3): 93–100. Retrieved 25 December 2024.
15. Authier, André (2015). "12. The Birth and Rise of the Space-Lattice Concept". Early days of X-ray crystallography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 379. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199659845.003.0012. ISBN 9780198754053. Retrieved 24 December 2024.
16. Swartz, Charles K. (21 December 1909). "Proposed Classification of Crystals based on the Recognition of Seven Fundamental Types of Symmetry". Bulletin of the Geological Society of America. 20 (1): 369–398. Bibcode:1909GSAB...20..369S. doi:10.1130/GSAB-20-369. Retrieved 24 December 2024.
17. Shafranovskii, I. I.; Frank-Kamenetskii, V. A. (1993). "Heinrich Paul Groth". Crystallography Reports. 38 (5): 710-713. Bibcode:1993CryRp..38..710S.
18. Dubov, P. L.; Frank-Kamenetskii, V. A.; Shafranovskii, I. I. (1985). "Centennial of E.S. Fedorov's classic book 'Principles of the science of figures'". Sov. Phys. Cryst. 30 (6): 711–713.
19. Shubnikov, A. V.; Kopt︠s︡ik, V. A. (1974). Symmetry in science and art. New York: Plenum Press. p. 124. ISBN 0306307596.
20. Luttinen, Arto; Väinölä, Risto; Halla, Jaana; Kröger, Björn; Lintulaakso, Kari; Juslén, Aino; Oinonen, Markku; Sihvonen, Pasi; Hyvärinen, Marko-Tapio (25 October 2021). "Geology collection policy of the Finnish Museum of Natural History". Research Ideas and Outcomes. 7. doi:10.3897/rio.7.e76875. Retrieved 25 December 2024.
21. Pekov, Igor V.; Zubkova, Natalia V.; Agakhanov, Atali A.; Yapaskurt, Vasiliy O.; Belakovskiy, Dmitry I.; Britvin, Sergey N.; Sidorov, Evgeny G.; Kutyrev, Anton V.; Pushcharovsky, Dmitry Yu. (February 2023). "New arsenate minerals from the Arsenatnaya fumarole, Tolbachik volcano, Kamchatka, Russia. XIX. Axelite, Na₁₄Cu₇(AsO₄)₈F₂Cl₂". Mineralogical Magazine. 87 (1): 109–117. Bibcode:2023MinM...87..109P. doi:10.1180/mgm.2022.120.

• 1828 births
• 1892 deaths
• Crystallographers
• Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences
• Finnish military personnel
• Imperial Russian lieutenant generals
• Finnish mineralogists
• Russian mineralogists
• Recipients of the Order of St. George of the Fourth Degree
• Recipients of the Order of Saint Stanislaus (Russian), 1st class
• Recipients of the Order of St. Anna, 1st class
• Recipients of the Order of St. Vladimir, 2nd class
• Commanders of the Legion of Honour
• Commanders Grand Cross of the Order of the Sword