Alumni

Presented here are pictures of crystalline organic compounds that were synthesized by graduate students working on advanced degree requirements at the University of California, Irvine. In most cases the compounds were previously unknown, having been synthesized for the first time in my laboratory. The pictures were taken for no particular scientific reason. They were simply to be reminders of the research efforts of these students working in the area of synthetic organic chemistry.

The pictures were taken through a microscope using plane-polarized light as a source. When this is done one observes wonderful colors since the light is diffracted as a function of the unique structure of the compound. For example, even a white crystalline compound may appear highly colored when subjected to this technique.

I became interested this technique for purely aesthetic reasons. I find the patterns and colors to be most fascinating. The eleven examples provided here fall into a series I call "The Cosmos" To me they represent various aspects of the cycle of evolution---Big Bang, Light, Nebula, Birth of the Stars, Birth of Sneffels (my favorite mountain in Colorado and also a mountain in Iceland called Snaefell, the volcano through which Jules Vern entered the earth in his novel, "Journey to the Center of the Earth"), Primordial Soup, Birth of the Cell, The Earth Blooms, Evolution, Black Hole and The Ultimate Observer.

Hal Moore

big bang	light	nebula
black hole	the ultimate observer	birth of the stars
evolution	birth of the cell	birth of the Sneffles
the Earth blooms		primordial soup