Dear friends,
I have forwarded to a friend - Carlo Trossarelli, Director of the Museum of
Crystallography of Turin University - the question posed by Robert Gordon on the
transalation of a sentence of Primo Levi.
Here is the answer that Carlo sent to me in copy: I think it may be of general
interest.
Lorenzo Enriques
Zanichelli editore
via Irnerio 34, 40126 Bologna, Italy
tel. (+39) 051.293.210
fax (+39) 051.293.311
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
web: www.zanichelli.it
________________
Dear Mr. Gordon,
I received your query via Lorenzo Enriques of the Italian publisher Zanichelli.
I am a technician at Dipartimento di Scienze Mineralogiche e Petrologiche,
Universita' di Torino and translated from English, for Zanichelli, two books on
Gemmology.
I consulted a friend of mine, Dino Aquilano (Professor of Mineralogy at my same
Department in the Turin University), which helped me in the solution of this
little mess.
(By the way, the Istituto di Chimica (now Dipartimento di Chimica), where Levi
accomplished his studies in Chemistry, lies only some tens of meters near our
Department.)
About your problem, the literal translation would be:
"it cleaves parallel to 001, which is the terminology used in the stereographic
operations..."
In point of fact, Levi demonstrates a not very good knowledge of the
crystallography and would had to write:
"si sfalda secondo 001: questa e' la terminologia usata dai cristallografi per
indicare le facce di un cristallo messe in relazione tra loro dalle operazioni
della simmetria cristallina; tra i differenti modi di rappresentare le facce di
un cristallo, e le relative operazioni di simmetria, si usano le proiezioni
stereografiche..."
The translation of this interpretation would be:
"it cleaves parallel to 001: this is the terminology which is used by the
crystallographers to indicate the crystal faces related to each other by means
of the crystal symmetry operations; among the different ways to symbolise the
crystal faces, and the related symmetry operations, the stereographic
projections are used..."
Sincerely yours
Carlo Trossarelli
Dipartimento di Scienze Mineralogiche
e Petrologiche
Via Valperga Caluso, 35
10125 Torino, Italy
Tel: 0039-011-6707157
FAX: 0039-011-6707128
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