The rapid development of powerful computers with gigantic memories has revolutioned our life and with it many fields of science. In crystallography, the breathtaking success of widely automatic crystal-structure determination, for example of vital biological compounds, is best known. Well-known in mathematics but less known among crystallographers is the program system ”GAP 4 Packages Cryst (previously known as CrystGAP), CrystCat, and Carat”. Also theoretical crystallography has gained from this progress. In the Solid-state Physics Department of the University of the Basque country in Bilbao, UPV/EHU, among others, two main tasks were in the research foreground in the late 1990ies:
In the course of this work the idea was born, to combine the corresponding procedures and tables in a program system which should be made generally available: the Bilbao Crystallographic Server. Meanwhile, with the years, the Server has been developed considerably and covers many fields of crystallography, in which methods of group theory and representation theory of crystallographic groups are applied. The Server is widely used and there is a need to spread and develop the necessary basic knowledge of group and representation theory. Therefore, it was found useful to introduce in a Summer School the fundamental facts concerning the contents of the Server to the users with special emphasis on exercises with practical examples. To realize the aim of the school, many experts of different fields of crystallography have gathered to present their own problems and the Server-based solutions. It is expected that through vivid discussions the participants not only learn for their special problems but also widen their horizon and thus become acquainted with other aspects of crystallography. It should be an excellent side effect, if through these discussions between the participants of the school, their ideas, their experience and their skills contribute to the further development of the Server.
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