- <i>"The first X-ray structure of a protein took until 1958 (myoglobin), and it was an absolutely heroic effort with the technology of the time."</i><p>Wow, that is remarkable [0]. I'm wondering how they calculated a 3-dimensional Fourier transform of x-ray data, on a 1958 machine [1]. Apparently they didn't trust their numerics and ran it twice?<p>[0] <a href="https://sci-hub.se/10.1038/181662a0" rel="nofollow">https://sci-hub.se/10.1038/181662a0</a><p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EDSAC" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EDSAC</a><p>late edit: I'm awed by this data presentation format [2], derived—somehow—from a Fourier transform calculated by the <i>mechanical computer</i> described here [3] in 1945.<p>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Hodgkin#/media/File:Model_of_the_Structure_of_Penicillin,_by_Dorothy_Hodgkin,_Oxford,_c.1945.jpeg" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Hodgkin#/media/File:Mo...</a><p>[3] <a href="https://sci-hub.se/10.1088/0959-5309/54/5/307" rel="nofollow">https://sci-hub.se/10.1088/0959-5309/54/5/307</a>