Stephen Argent

@steppphhhen.bsky.social

Crystallographer and sometimes supramolecular chemist at University of Nottingham. Looking for light chemistry banter and responsible ownership.

Children's shape sorter cube toy with holes for various shapes including an irregular hole to fit spacefilling views of of vanillin and naphthaldehyde. Semi-AI generated slop, beacuse when AI tries to draw a molecule it ends up looking almost, but not quite, entirely unlike a molecule.

$A single crystal diffractometer instrument in a research lab. The cryostream accessory has a liquid nitrogen feed line coming from a small and comically rotund 25 litre onion Dewar instead of the more usual 60 litre barrel type Dewar. Oh how we giggled.$

Screen grab of the Wikipedia page for coronene taken in 2009 when persons unknown added "sphincterene" to the other names section.

A fluffy Chow Chow puppy sitting in a cardboard box

Photo of the School of Chemistry post-graduate symposium poster session in full flow taking place in the iconic GSK Carbon Neutral Laboratory Winter Garden atrium. PG and staff researchers mingle together amongst posters in the sunny sub-tropical atrium, discussing their science whilst refereshing themsleves with delicious cold Castle Rock Session IPA (upfront hoppy aromas of grapefruit with a soft bitterness - vegan friendly and gluten free) all made possible by our generous sponsors GPE Scientific, Julabo, Apollo Scientific, Biotage, RSC Publishing and Sygnature.

Hexagonal tiling photograph taken off a floor in the Bahia palace, Marrakesh.

Tiling from the floor of the Duomo di Siena alongside a Fourier transform of the image.

Avchow chow dog with a somewhat undergroomed blue coat standing outside a polling station in Bramcote

Photo of the river Trent taken from the cycle path of Clifton Bridge looking south. The water is still and pleasingly reflects the blue cloudy sky.

An azulejo tiling picture of Pan in all his naughtiness, alongside a Fourier transform of the tiling image.

Side by side images of an AI generated aperiodic azulejo style tiling and a Fourier transform of the tiling image. Wildly tentative wallpaper group guess made by a crude Python script is p4 or p6 (very nope).

Side by side images of an azulejo tiling (of the Delirium Tremens Beer Elephants) and a Fourier transform of the tiling image. Wildly tentative wallpaper group guess made by a crude Python script is pmm or cmm.

Side by side images of an azulejo tiling and a Fourier transform of the tiling image. Wildly tentative wallpaper group guess made by a crude Python script is p4m or p6m.

Tiling called "The Wedding of the Hen" alongside a Fourier transform of the image.

Side by side images of an azulejo tiling of broken tiles and a Fourier transform of the tiling image. Wildly tentative wallpaper group guess made by a crude Python script is p4 or p6 (it so really isn't).

Side by side images of a ripply tiling and a Fourier transform of the tiling image. Wildly tentative wallpaper group guess made by a crude Python script is p1.

3D Printed giant lego daffodil style flowers on an office windowsill. Most of the green "stems" are bare but a few brave plastic yellow heads have burst forth promising an end to a long dark winter that we'd all like to see the back of.

Quentin Blake's illustration of Mr Twit from Roald Dahl's "The Twits" featuring Mr Twit's wild bushy beard.

$Screen grab of the bright spot of the undiffracted beam at the centre of an electron diffraction image. A lone weak diffraction peak adjacent to the large central spot looks like a bit like a planet orbiting a star.$

$A 3D printed Christmas wreath made of giant Lego ferns and studs hangs on the door of a crystallography lab. Various broken diffractometers can be glimpsed through the festive branches of the wreath. The lego wreath has been assembled in a conformation with point group C3.$

A ball and stick view of a molecular macrocyclic molecule superimposed on green wreath and snowy winter scene. Taken from the cover art for Chem. Sci., 2023,14, 70-77 https://doi.org/10.1039/D2SC05348A

$Ewald Explorer view of the reciprocal lattice of a four-fold twinned diffraction pattern viewed along the c* direction. The colours of the reflecitons of each twin component are blue, yellow, red and beige respectively, making for a very festive looking spot-fest.$

Microscope image of a colourless crystal that has a long jagged shape reminiscent of a Minecraft pixelated sword.

Ewald3D (software: Rigaku CrysAlisPro) view of the 0kl plane of a very confusing reciprocal lattice in which many of the peaks are split into clusters of four peaks.

$Screen grab of the Ewald Explorer Reciprocal Lattice Viewer (software - Rigaku CrysAlisPro) of a very strange diffraction pattern. Many of the diffraction spots of an approximately orthorhombic/tetragonal ish reciprocal lattice are all split into groups of four peaks.$

Magnetic fridge letters spelling out the equations for Bragg's law and the (now correct) conversion to momentum transfer Q.

$Scene in a laboratory of two computer screens on a desk in front of a powder X-ray diffractometer. The side of the diffractometer is festooned with magnetic fridge letters spelling out the name of the instrument, and Bragg's law with conversion to Q (which some users of the instrument are really keen on). The desktop background of the computer screens are some lovely Debye-Scherrer ring diffraction patterns. The side of the instrument is also decorated with some colourful posters informing users of how to setup their diffraction experiments. Fingers crossed that some of them read it.$