Martin Julian Buerger

Martin Julian Buerger
Born	April 8, 1903 Detroit, MI
Died	February 26, 1986 (Alzheimer's) Lincoln, Massachusetts
Citizenship	American
Nationality	American
Fields	Crystallographer
Institutions	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Alma mater	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Doctoral advisor	Waldemar Lindgren
Notable awards	Arthur L. Day Medal - 1951, Roebling Medal - 1958, Honorary Doctorate from the University of Bern, Switzerland, Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences

Martin Julian Buerger (April 8, 1903-February 26, 1986) was an American crystallographer. He was a Professor of Mineralogy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He invented the X-ray precession camera for studies in crystallography. Buerger authored twelve textbooks/monographs and over 200 technical articles. He was awarded the Arthur L. Day Medal by the Geological Society of America in 1951. The mineral fluor-buergerite was named for him. The MJ Buerger Award (established by the American Crystallographic Association) was established in his honor.

Buerger was a member of the Provisional International Crystallographic Committee chaired by P. P. Ewald from 1946 to 1948, and he continued as a member of the IUCr Executive Committee from 1948 to 1951. He was also a member of the Commission on International Tables from its establishment in 1948 until 1981.

He was the great-grandson of Ernst Moritz Buerger, who led a group of Lutheran immigrants from Germany to the United States in 1838, and helped found what is now the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod.

In 1956, Buerger was the third person (after John C. Slater and Francis O. Schmitt) to have been appointed Institute Professor at MIT.

Significant works

• Crystal-Structure Analysis, 668pp, Krieger Pub Co, 1979
• Introduction to crystal geometry, 204pp., R. E. Krieger, 1977
• Contemporary crystallography, 364pp., McGraw Hill, 1970
• Elementary crystallography;: An introduction to the fundamental geometrical features of crystals, 528pp., Wiley, 1963
• X-ray crystallography;: An introduction to the investigation of crystals by their diffraction of monochromatic X radiation, 531pp., Chapman & Hall, 1958

References

• Memorial, American Mineralogist, Volume 73, pages 1483-1485, 1988
• Description and photograph of Buergerite
• Obituary from the Journal of Applied Crystallography, 1986
• Obituary from the New York Times