iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

Structural Analysis of Coordination Cage/Guest Complexes Prepared with the ‘Crystalline Sponge’ Methodology www.mdpi.com/2073-4352/14... Well done Chris Taylor and James Williams for finishing up these structures for a nice paper in Crystals.

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.

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

Lift broken this week so the SuperNova has mostly been drinking hand hauled moonshine out of an Onion Dewar.

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

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 19/08/2025

Did they all have their Wikipedia pages vandalised in the late noughties?

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

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 18/08/2025

If you don't want to see a picture of my cute pet I'll have to post it to you instead.

A fluffy Chow Chow puppy sitting in a cardboard box

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

Many thanks again to @rscadvances.rsc.org @materialsadvances.rsc.org for their generous sponsorship of our PGR Symposium poster prizes. Congratulations again to Alice Nottingham and Sean Hoggett for their terrific posters!

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.

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

Diffractometers like to throw shapes.

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

Love your photos of the four fold symmetric patterns in the Bahia palace! I spotted this rare example of a cheeky Kagome pattern taken in the entrance to the small Riad. People were just walking straight over it 🙄.

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

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 04/05/2025

How much more fun would the Fourier transform be if the moons were random?

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

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

Remember to vote early if you're a chow chow, as it's too blinking hot to be doing much after 9am #dogsatpollingstations Broxtowe Beeston North

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

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Many thanks to @benjaminchem.bsky.social for the kind invite to cross the river and visit Nottingham Trent University Chemistry to collect some diffraction data for a naughty incommensurate crystal on their rather marvelous @rigakuoxfordxrd.bsky.social Synergy-DW.

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.

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

A treat for anyone that made it to the end of the thread. Happy tessellating and fast Fourier transforming everyone! 23/23

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

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

Bit of a naughty pattern that one. 22/999

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).

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

You might need a stiff drink if you've made it this far down the thread. I hope it's coming to an end. 21/999

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.

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

I think I can see some systematic absences in this tiling. Or maybe it just needs rotating by 45°. 20/999

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.

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

The code used to generate these Fourier transform images is on GitHub (apologies in advance) github.com/steppphhhen/... 19/999

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

This tiling reminds me of the mind-bending card game "Set" that the group of @nchampness.bsky.social used to play in the office at lunchtime. 18/999

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

This tiling is called "The Wedding of the Hen" (www.atlasobscura.com/places/weddi...), and it was probably worth the journey to Lisbon alone (that and the TimeOut market). 17/999

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

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

But sometimes everthing is just lovely and you get to see some freaky interpenetration. 16/999

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

Sometimes the researcher describes what it is they're trying to do, and you know it's going to be a difficult day (or perhaps year). 15/999

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

Sometimes you put a crystal on the diffractometer against your better judgement because the researcher has pleading eyes and has tried so hard. 14/999

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).

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

Sometimes you go to the lab with a functionalised polyoxometalate crystal, and you keep saying "please don't be cubic, please don't be cubic". And it is. (you both know who you are) 13/999

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

Sometimes you go into the lab with a crystal that you think is so full of promise, and the outcome is underwhelming in the extreme (you crystal service users all know who you are) 12/999

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

The script also tries a few different maths-ey things to make the contrast of the Fourier transforms pop a bit more. 11/999

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

Most of these transforms were actually taken of a larger tessellated images of the tilings. The script wasn't in a FEL kind of mood and needed a few more unit cells. 10/999

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

The Python script chooses colours from the input image to use in the Fourier transform. Maybe CrysAlisPro from @rigakuoxfordxrd.bsky.social could liven things up with a feature like this. Use colours from the video of the crystal to make the diffraction frames more realistic? 9/999

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

This tiling gave me the heebie-jeebies as it looks like a load of term symbols. Quick - take a FFT - ah, that's better. 8/999

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

So programming credit should go to all the unknown people who wrote and shared code that chatGPT *borrowed* to help me make the script work. Thanks all. 7/999

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

When I say I wrote a script, I mean I bellowed instructions at chatGPT which did an amazing job of working out what I wanted it to do. 6/999

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

I started tranforming using the web tool here bigwww.epfl.ch/demo/ip/demo... by Daniel Sage et al, but I wrote my own Python script to speed things up. I also have an app on my phone, but it's unsupported and nearly melted the phone. 5/999

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

I think you can just about spot the lack of mirror planes in the Fourier transform of this one. The crude script that chatGPT wrote for me thinks this is p4, but I vote p2. 4/999

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

This tiling was in the ceiling of the metro station at the Martime Port. Some great interference patterns going on up there. 3/999

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.

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

Lots of awesome tiles to be seen in the Lisbon Tile museum! Like this one. 2/999

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

Couldn't wait to get back from a holiday in Lisbon to start taking Fourier transforms of all the lovely azulejo tiles I saw! 1/999

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

I reckon I know who the author was

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

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

Just enjoyed a very productive day at the National Electron Diffraction Facility at the University of Warwick where our host Jere Tidey helped us solve some amazing structures and spot an exoplanet. Today I also learned why orienting a crystal on a zone axis is bad thing even though it looks pretty.

$Screen grab of the bright spot of the undiffracted beam at the centre of an electron diffraction image. A lone weak diffraction peak adjacent to the large central spot looks like a bit like a planet orbiting a star.$ $Electron diffraction image of a crystal zone axis with a stripe of evenly spaced spots running across the image.$

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

Now that's the wreath of a crystallographer. Lab B15 is nearly ready for Christmas (i.e. everything's stopped working and there's no hope of fixing any of it before January).

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

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

Hello CCDC, What's my #CSDWrapped? Stephen P Argent. Plug for last year's festive macrocycle avalanche: Chem. Sci., 2023,14, 70-77 doi.org/10.1039/D2SC...

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

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

Yep, four-fold twinning. CrysAlisPro found this much easier to get its head round than I did. The structure solves okay from the hklf4, and as usual, the stats and refinement from the hklf5 are terrible. Probably need to muck about with the mask size options.

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

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

Friday fun with some zinc MOF crystals that look like Minecraft swords. The fun being that they diffracted just as nicely as Monday's Pd octahedral crystals #cursedcrystallographer

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

Microscope image of lots of colourless crystals that have long jagged shapes reminiscent of a Minecraft pixelated swords.

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

A 0kl slice of the same baffling reciprocal lattice from above. Help me BlueSKy - you're my only hope.

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.

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Any suggestions about what's going on with this reciprocal lattice very welcome. I'd usually put it down to iffy-crytal, but this one was practically perfect in everyway (see GIF above).

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

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 17/10/2024

The PANalytical X'pert powder X-ray diffractometer has never looked lovlier now that it is decorated with a new poster reminding users what all the slits and masks do.

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

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 10/10/2024

Somewhere over the rainbow is hopefully some sort of cubane-esque mad nine-cornered polyhedral cage.

Microscope view of a needle like crystal of an organic compound. The microscope has crossed polarising filters, so the actually colourless crystal appears to be tinted a series of rainbow hues along it's length. It's the kind of sight that makes you grab a phone and point it down the microscope eye piece.

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 17/09/2024

Amazing tool for extracting crystals from the neck of a Young's NMR tube: the bent Pasteur pipette! Thanks Kieran. No thanks to the chemist who thoughtlessly grew crystals in such an awkward place. Now let's hope they actually diffract.

Two Pasteur pipettes which have had their tips skillully bent to an angle of around 160° with a blow torch and a pair of tweezers.

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Stephen Argent @steppphhhen.bsky.social · 08/08/2024

Been playing with the diamonds today. Scale not to scale.

Very close up arty microscope image of a recently cleaned cutlet face of a diamond from a diamond anvil cell.

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