Originally Posted by crashsite

You don't seem to have any interest in actually doing experiments but, crystals are one of the things that you can do quite a bit of simple stuff with. You can, for example look at salt under a magnifier to see the square pattern of its crystal. You can grow a sugar crystal on a string and see the structure very graphically. Those are simple enough that they are common 5th and 6th grade science fair projects.

I saw a, History Detectives show on PBS just the other day where they used a polarizer to test if an old crucifix was glass or natural crystal by polarization (a test that can be done with nothing motre than the sun and one lens of a pair of polarized sunglasses).

Read up on the basics of liquid crystal displays and find something that has one (like an LCD watch) and disassemble it and look at how the display is made and connected to the circuit board. You can buy a watch with a dead battery for a nickel at just about any garage sale.

So, the answer to your question is that crystals are very complex and there's a lot of math and technical stuff about them and there's simple stuff you can do with them, too.

Read some material on the basics of semiconductors (tr5ansistors and diodes) and it will tell you about how "doping" crystals can change their electrical properties and how different types of doped crystals can be used to fabricate diodes and transistors. It can also give you a practical working knowledge of how "cat whisker" galena crystals work in the old crystal set radios.

You can also read up on the piezoelectric effect (how crystals can react to physical bending).

There's a lifetime's worth of farting around with crystals that can be done even if you don't want to get into the technical details of them all that deep. If your interest extends beyond just sitting around and pondering the esoteric and mystical nature of them...do some of it.

Originally Posted by crashsite

I'm sorry to say but, taking the approach to the subject that you've indicated is going to yield you zero useful information about crystals. Also, unfortunately, this seems to be the approach you take to all technical endeavors. You might find information that will be more useful to you in less technically inclined forums where the "esoteric" and "mystical" nature of phjenomena will be bantered about more in line with your thinking.

Originally Posted by jasonbe

Would you think about my question and let me know if any site or type of sites comes to mind? I wouldn't agree that this topic doesn't belong at this site. I'll consider that it doesn't and welcome feedback.

Originally Posted by crashsite

The topic itself is a good match for this site. How you are trying to deal with it isn't really a very good match. Like I say, you might be more at home in a forum that enjoys discussing the artsy-fartsy, pseudo-techie aspects of stuff.

And, no...I don't have any suggestions. That's just not my thing.

Originally Posted by jasonbe

I may at a later time try to explain to you why and how I am addressing it - as least how I think I am addressing it. Because you seem to think that the topic is a good match for this site - and seem to have a conception of how I am addressing it, would you try to find a way of addressing the question that is consistent with this objectives of this site - and also as consistent as possible with how you think that I am addressing it?

Originally Posted by crashsite

You give nothing to respond to. The stuff you are coming up with is very much like that of some strung out hippie, in a head shop, shopping for crystals after reading some eastern religion book and becoming convinced that crystals provide some insight to the inner workings of the universe.

You are pulling the same stunt you've done before of making sure you just keep feeding out a bunch of crap while being very careful not to do any real study or experimentation of the subject.

Originally Posted by jasonbe

In my opinion, you described at least one admirable characteristic of a group of people who I might classify differently.

Originally Posted by crashsite

That's the kind of forum you should seek out. The kind that would appeal to the starry-eyed hippies and those who relate to and admire them. I'm not quite sure what you're doing here. You obviously don't want the kind of information that technically inclined people have to give.

Originally Posted by MrAl

Hi Jason,


I couldnt help notice that you are again asking questions that are somewhat
advanced for your apparent educational background. I think this is why you
are getting some adverse replies.

You are obviously a *very* intelligent person, but you are cheating your
own intellect by not covering some of the ground floor subject material that
is basic to much of what the questions you are asking are about.

Dont cheat yourself out of a much more interesting and rewarding life by
skipping some of the ground work.

Originally Posted by jasonbe

How technical do descriptions of impurities, crystals, and changes in crystalline structures have to be? Wouldn't it take less time to describe them in the least technical language that you could think of?

Originally Posted by crashsite

Absolutely not. Technical language is not developed in order to make a technical subject confusing but, rather to give technical people some common terminology and verbage to better ensure accurate exchange of the information. When people don't like or accept or "get" the technical language, it doesn't change the fact that it's useful.

There are those here who have the same complaint about me when it comes to math. In my case, I'm very poor at math. I just don't see the answers in it and, I'll tell you something else. A lot of people who think they do see the answers in math really don't. What they do is parrot back the formulas and equations they learned without actually bothering to "learn" it...and think that memorizing the math is the same as understanding the concept.

So, in a way, I'm in a similar situation as you are but, there are ways around the math. It's by ensuring that you have a good conceptual understanding of the basics that you can build on and learn the terminology so you can convey it in acceptable technical language.

It's just that coming up with nut-fringe stuff isn't the solution. MrAl is right. If you want to interface with the technical world you have to do enough of the groundwork to at least be able to use the accepted terminology and concepts that are in common use.

Now, to you question. A crystal is conceptually pretty simple. It consists of atoms arranged in a well structured manner that gives the crystal it's form and characteristics. There's a lot that can be gotten from researching crystals and also just looking at them and doing experiments with them, all on a pretty elementary level.

But, asking about crystals and then sluffing it off by saying that you aren't really interested in crystals, anyway is not going to get you a good response when you ask your next question. Why should people bother to try to answer your next question when you've said that you're not really interested in getting an answer to the last one?

The thing is, there are a lot of people like you out there in the world (actaully, most people). It's just that most of them don't bother to post in technical forums. You really might be more at home in forums where it may seem normal for crystals to exhibit "fluffiness" and have more than 3 dimensions...and a host of other atributes that aren't supported by science.

You might consider joining the Mormon Church. Their founder, Joseph Smith regularly used "seer stones" to see supernatural things. The Book of Mormon, the basic Mormon scripture of ancient people living in the Americas, was supposedly transcribed from gold plates, buried in a hill in New York State. Smith claims to have used a sort of eyeglass device (buried with the plates) called a Urim and Thumim (The Urim and Thummim Photo Exposition) that he would peer through to translate the ancient text to English (rather poorProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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nglish as it turns out). But, the point is that Mormons are convinced of the reality of Smith's seer stones and there's even a collection of them in the Mormon archives. Mormons will never tire of you expounding about such things so long as you profess to be of the Mormon faith.

Back when Star Trek (original) was hot, somebody published a technical manual for Star Fleet Command. I forget the name of the book but, it should be pretty easy to look up on the internet. Of course, one of the things that was covered was the warp drive and the role of the di-lithium crystals. Unfortunately, noone has actually built a warp drive but, that shouldn't stop you from engaging in endless discussions with Trekkies on various Star Trek websites about di-lithium crystals and their characteristics. Of course, you'll only be taken seriously if you pass yourself off as a Trekkie, too.

Energy flows in crystals are a mainstay for crystal buffs. In addition to the healing energy that can flow between crystals and living things, there are also energy flows that allow all sorts of things from communicating with beings in other universes to communicating with your pet cat. If you find some websites or forums where these types of people hang out and can pass yourself off as being at least as nut-fringe as they are you can spend a lifetime exchanging crystal lore (without fear of ever risking the embarassment of needing to know anything technical about them).

So, anyway, I'm just not sure why you are here when there's a whole world of whackos just waiting for you to wow them with your own views on crystals.