Symmetry and Structure
6-11 August 2000
Skukuza, South Africa
About 60 delegates flocked to Skukuza, the largest rest camp in the Kruger National Park, to attend the third Indaba of the South African Crystallographic Society, a meeting sponsored by the International Union of Crystallography. The theme of the workshop, "Symmetry and Structure", provided ample opportunities for the meeting to progress in accordance with the true "Indaba " spirit, i.e. to study a subject in depth from a large number of different angles. The scientific program consisted of 14 invited and 14 contributing lectures, and 30 posters presented in two separate sessions.
Henk Schenk, president of the IUCr, opened the proceedings with a short review of the structure and activities of the Union, after which Jan Boeyens (Pretoria) gave an overview of the interplay between symmetry, the time-space universe, and the fundamental laws of nature. Dave Avnir (Jerusalem) presented a qualitative an quantitative measurement of symmetry, and speculated about the relation between symmetry, information content, and entropy. Clive Graham (Pietermaritzburg) discussed chirality and time reversal symmetry in molecular an crystal optics, and a very flamboyant Howard Flack (Geneva) discussed the problems and pitfalls of the determination of absolute structure and absolute configuration. The afternoon session saw presentations by Izhack Oref (Haifa), J. Cai (Guangzhou), and Herbert Kunert (Pretoria).
The social highlight of the day was a game drive through the chilly winter night in the surrounding bushveld of the camp. The spirits of the shivering participants flared up when they were treated to the very rarely witnessed spectacle of a large herd of buffalo being attacked by a pride of lions, the latter making a successful kill.
The next morning, Tuesday, Aloysio Janner (Nijmegen) gave a fascinating lecture comparing the symmetry of snow flakes with that of DNA molecules. This got Jan Boeyens so excited that he stepped forward and grabbed the surprised speaker’s hand to congratulate him. Olga Vassilyeva (Kiev) then proceeded to report on the structure and properties of some copper complexes. Peter Comba (Heidelberg) proved to be a talented performer and entertained everyone with a pair of chiral apples, the similarity between the " Ascending and Descending" painting by Esher and German politics, and the amount of "leftness" and " rightness" in the faces of his twin daughters. Markus Lofener presented a paper by Anton Amann (Innsbruck) who was unable to attend, on the substance problem in chemistry and the use of large deviations theory.
Eiji Osawa (Toyohashi) kicked off the afternoon session with a new model to describe hydrogen bonds based on data extracted from the Cambridge Structural Database. After showing some interesting McGuillevry memorabilia, Henk Schenk (Amsterdam) discussed the influence of symmetry on the solutions in direct methods. A well-attended poster session closed the day’s official activities at around 21:00.
After the daily early morning game searching excursion, breakfast on Wednesday witnessed the first reports of participants having spotted the "big five": elephant, lion, buffalo, rhino and leopard. Undisturbed by the exuberance of the visual hunters, Gautam Desiraju (Hyderabad) discussed relationships between molecular and supramolecular symmetry. After tea, Luigi Nassimbeni (Cape Town), eloquently spoke about physico-chemical aspects of inclusion compounds. Nobuyuki Harada (Sendai) demonstrated (on paper !) the mechanism of a light-powered molecular motor, and Demi Levendis (Johannesburg) discussed the relation between pseudo-symmetry, superlattices, and disorder. Finally, the afternoon was devoted to the second poster session.
The proceedings of the last day were opened by Judy Flippen-Anderson (Washington) who dwelled on the rapid progress of data collection and computing power, and who also gave an overview of what she called "twins, disorder and other demons". A cheerful André Roodt (Bloemfontein) then discussed some examples of chirality in coordination chemistry. John Rutherford (Buluwayo) and André Yonkeu (Darmstadt) completed the morning lectures which were followed by a demonstration of the new Cambridge Structural Database software by Manual Fernandes (Johannesburg).
The final "graveyard" session (dixit the session chairman) was actually well attended. K. Tornroos (Bergen) spoke about order-disorder phase transitions, W. Depmeier (Kiel) covered structural disorders in microporous materials, and J. Cai (Guangzhou) discussed some racemic and enantiomeric complexes.
Judy Flippen-Anderson closed the scientific program, and after a final game-spotting excursion, all attendants enjoyed some tribal Zulu dancing, had some traditional "potjiekos" for dinner, and listened to the — also traditional - nonsense speech by the nestor of South African crystallography, Jan Boeyens, and a very witty Peter Comba . During the evening, Manuel Fernandes (Johannesburg) and Armin Wagner (Johannesburg/Berlin) shared a prize for presenting the best poster.
In retrospect, Indaba III managed to fulfill its ultimate goal of being a highly stimulating and successful "meeting of minds".
Jan Dillen
Department of Chemistry
University of Stellenbosch