The hundredth anniversary of Laue’s discovery of X-ray diffraction by crystals

This review begins with the background of Laue’s discovery which gave rise to two branches of science, X-ray crystallography and X-ray spectroscopy. It also covers the contributions made by W. H. Bragg and W. L. Bragg to these two areas, and will end with reviewing some of the far-reaching influence of X-ray crystallography.