Schuh’s Annotated Bio-Bibliography

FYODOROV, Evgraf Stepanovich.

(1853 – 1919)

(Born: Orenburg, Russian, 22 December 1853; Died: Petrograd, Russia, 21 May 1919) Russian crystallographer, geometrist, petrologist, mineralogist and geologist.

Fyodorov studied mathematics indepentently while attending the St. Petersburg Military Engineering School, the Military Medical and Surgical Academy, and the Technological Institute. Upon graduating from the Mining Institute in 1883, Fyodrov took an appointment with the Mining Department where he was included in an expedition to explore the northern Urals. He extended a very strong influence on the developement of mineralogy and crystallography at the end of the nineteenth century. His clssification of symmetry groups of crystallized matter lead directly to the working out of a new nomenclature of systems and point group symmetries known as Fyodorov-Groth nomenclature. Fyodorov's goniometer modifications produced a revolution in the method of investigating minerals. Invented the universal stage (Fyodorov table) for petrographic microscopes that would locate the specimen at the center of two glass hemispheres (Fyodorov method).

Biographical references: DSB: 5, 210-4. • ISIS, 1913-65: 1, 411. • Krüger, P., "Evgraf Stepanovic Fedorov (1853-1919)", (pp. 63-77) in: Guntau, M., ed., Biographien bedeutender Geowissenschaftler der Sowjetunion: 19 biographischer Darstellung zu bedeutenden Gelehrten der russian sowjet. Geologiegeschichte. Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1979. [Published as: Schriftenreihe für geologische Wissenschaften, Berlin, 14, (1979).]. • Poggendorff: 4, 409-10. • Sarjeant, Geologists, 1980: 2, 988. • Sarjeant, Geologists, Suppl. 1, 1986: 1, 413. • Shafranovskii, I.I. and N.V. Belov, "In Memoriam: E.S. Fedorov," (pp. 341-50) in: Ewald, P.P., et al., ed., Fifty years of X-ray diffraction. Utrecht, International Union of Crystallographers, 1962. • World Who's Who in Science: 551. • Zvorykin, Biograficheskii Slovar, 1958: 2, 302-4.

Simmetriia Pravilnykh Sistem Figur, 1890

[Translitered title:]

8°: [1]-146 p.

Very rare. This is Fyodorov's classic work that provides the deduction of the possible 230 space groups that now serve as the mathematical basis of structural and crystallographic analysis. Early in his career, Fyodorov became interested in the relationship between symmetry and crystallography. Extending the previous work of Bravais and Sohncke, Fydorov focused his attention on the aggregate of point systems providing a complete derivation of real point systems and the derivation of all possible forms of crsytal structures with every group rigorously determined by an algebreic determination. Symmetry of Real Systems of Configuration outlines Fydorov's methods that systematically developed the studies of symmetry as they pertain to natural crystals and shows conclusively that there are only 230 possible configures. Incredibly, the German crystallographer Schoenflies almost similtanously derived the same configurations, although Fydorov clearly had priority.

Separate preprints of this work were published in 1890 and presented by the author to his colleages and friends in Russia and Europe. The work was then printed as "Simmetrija pravil'nych sistem figur" in Zapiski S. Petersburg Mineral. Obsc., 2nd series, 28 (1891), pp. 1-146.

Bibliographical references: BL [no copy listed]. • DSB: 5, 210-4 [by A. Meniailov]. • Grigorev & Shafranovskii, Russkie Mineralogi, 1949: pp. 136-61. • Krüger, P., "Evgraf Stepanovic Fedorov (1853-1919)", (pp. 63-77) in: Guntau, M., ed., Biographien bedeutender Geowissenschaftler der Sowjetunion: 19 biographischer Darstellung zu bedeutenden Gelehrten der russian sowjet. Geologiegeschichte. Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1979. [Published as: Schriftenreihe für geologische Wissenschaften, Berlin, 14, (1979).]. • Senechal, History of Geometrical Crystallography, 1990: p. 48. • Shafranovskii, I.I. and N.V. Belov, "In Memoriam: E.S. Fedorov," (pp. 341-50) in: Ewald, P.P., et al., ed., Fifty years of X-ray diffraction. Utrecht, International Union of Crystallographers, 1962.

2. Russian, 1897.
Kurs kristallogafii. Kratkoe rukovodstvo po kristallografii ... 1897.

8°: xvi, 375 p., illus. Very scarce.

3. German, 1920 [German transl.].
Das krystallreich. Tabellen zur krystallochemischen analyse. Von E. von Fedorov, unter mitwirkung von D. Artemiev ... Th. Barker, B. Orelkin und W. Sokolov ... Petrograd, 1920.

[Text] 4°: [4], lxxiv, 1050 p. [Atlas] 4°: [4] p., 213 plates.

Very scarce. This is a German translation of the enormous "Tsarstvo Kristallov" ("The Crystal Kingdom") that appeared in Zapiski Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk, 36 (1920). It was the culmination of Fyodorov's forty years of research in crystallography. Fydorov and his favorite students collected enorumous quantities of data from the measurments of all possible crystals. This information was categoriezed and published a year after Fydorov's death in this monumental work. From the geometry of the crystals, the author derives conclusions about their internal structure., an idea taken up by Harker, Donnay, and others in the following decades.

Bibliographical references: BL [Ac.1125/3]. • Boldirew, A.K., Kommentarii k rabote E.S. Fedorova: Das krystallreich. Leningrad, Acad. des sci., 1926. 72 p., tab. • Grigorev & Shafranovskii, Russkie Mineralogi, 1949: pp. 136-61.