I know that Armel likes to be a little provocative sometimes (who doesn't
:-) but there are many people on the neutron mailing list who are only too
happy to be convinced that X-rays can do it all. Then they can use the
money instead to build the latest version of their fancy spectrometer for
measuring excitations in materials whose structure is just a detail still
to be determined :-)
As an illustration of the problem I enclose an email I am about to send to
ILL users asking for support for neutron powder diffraction (sorry if you
get it twice). Support here from Armel would be very welcome, as it would
be from any other (even potential) user of neutron powder diffraction.
Alan H.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
>Many of you will know about the "super-D2B" proposal to increase the
intensity of our high resolution powder diffractometer, allowing more use
of the best possible resolution with smaller samples.
(http://www.ill.fr/dif/2000/2000-D2b.html)
>
>Naturally our Science Council need to understand the scientific interest
of such a proposal - to emphasise that point, one (a theoretician) asked at
the last meeting if higher intensity would "just mean more second-rate
science".
>
>I'm grateful that many of you contributed to the recent review of powder
diffraction, but if you would like to further support the scientific case,
you might wish to communicate directly with one of the Science Council
members who represent your interests at ILL (see
http://www.ill.fr/dif/council.html) Their next meeting is 20-22 October.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dr Alan W. Hewat, Diffraction Group Leader,
Institut Laue-Langevin Grenoble FRANCE <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> tel (33) 4.76.20.72.13
ftp://ftp.ill.fr/pub/dif fax (33) 4.76.20.76.48 http://www.ill.fr/dif/
