| Authorised form of name | Mackay; Alan Lindsay (1926-2025); crystallographer |
| Dates | 1926 - 2025 |
| Nationality | British |
| Place of birth | Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England, United Kingdom |
| Date of birth | 06 September 1926 |
| Place of death | London, England, United Kingdom |
| Date of death | 24 February 2025 |
| Occupation | Crystallographer |
| Activity | Education:
Wolverhampton Grammar School (1935-1940); Oundle School (1940-1944); Trinity College, Cambridge (1944-1947); PhD (1951); DSc (1986)
Career:
Professor of Crystallography, Birkbeck College, University of London (1986-2025).
Memberships:
Fellow of the Mexican Academy of Sciences
Fellow of Birkbeck College |
| Membership category | Fellow |
| Date of election | 17/03/1988 |
| Age at election | 61 |
| RSActivity | Committees:
Library Committee 1990-1995
Lectures:
Bernal 2001 |
| Relationships | Parents: Mother and father were both physicians.
Spouse: (m. 1951) Sheila Thorne Hague.
Children: One daughter and two sons. |
| PublishedWorks | RCN 45
RCN R80579
RCN 14383
RCN R75918
RCN 12131
RCN 12132
RCN 12133
RCN 17701
RCN 12183
RCN 4576 |
| OtherInfo | His contributions to non-Euclidean crystallography have furthered our understanding of quasicrystalline and icosahedral phases. He predicted the occurrence of five-fold symmetry and computed the details of the diffraction patterns to be expected from such structures several years before they were observed experimentally. He is a leading authority on the geometry and symmetry of crystals and has made pioneering contributions to periodic minimal surfaces, packing in curved manifolds, and to incommensurate structures. He has elaborated the importance of the Penrose pattern for crystallography and demonstrated optically its Fourier transform. Alan has also made noteworthy use of quaternions in crystallographic calculations. |
| Source | The Royal Society Fellows Directory, Professor Alan Mackay FRS, [URL: https://royalsociety.org/people/alan-mackay-11853/; last accessed: 23/04/2025]
IUCr Newsletter, (2025) Volume 33, Number 2, Obituary, Farewell to Alan L. Mackay (1926-2025) - Scientist, Friend, Istvan Hargittai, [URL: https://www.iucr.org/news/newsletter/volume-33/number-2/farewell-to-alan-l.-mackay-1926-2025-scientist,-friend] |
| Code | NA2384 |
Archives associated with this Fellow
| RefNo | Title | Date |
| EC/1988/21 | Mackay, Alan Lindsay: certificate of election to the Royal Society | 1986 |
| IM/005454 | MacKay, Alan Lindsay | circa 2003 |