To honor the centenary of the 1914 Nobel Prize in Physics that was awarded to Max von Laue (1879–1960) the United Nations Educational, Scientific & Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declared 2014 to be the International Year of Crystallography (IYCr). The principal objectives of IYCr are to increase public awareness of crystallography and how it underpins most technological developments in modern society, to inspire young people through public exhibitions, conferences, and hands-on demonstrations in schools, to illustrate the universality of science, to intensity of the program Crystallography in Africa and to create similar programs in Asia and Latin America, to foster international collaboration between scientists worldwide, especially North-South contributions, to promote education and research in crystallography and its links to other sciences, and to involve the large synchrotron and neutron irradiation facilities worldwide in celebrations of IYCr 2014, including the SESAME project set up under UNESCO auspices. According to the International Union of Crystallography, 29 Nobel Prizes have been awarded for work related to crystallography.
George B. Kauffman (Sun,) studied this question.