Abstract
Long before I embarked upon my (rather late) scientific training I was always fascinated by the physical appearance of many things in the world around me. In particular the contrasting colours and shapes of minerals and other naturally occurring substances intrigued me. After acquiring the appropriate knowledge I discovered that beryl grows a beautiful hexagonal prisms and well formed fluorite has lots of flat faces because what's within is manifest without; the crystal structure of beryl is hexagonal and that of fluorite is cubic with twins and octahedral cleavages. Conversely the blobbiness of obsidian or amber told, I learnt, of their noncrystallinity. I learnt there was more; metals are nice and shiny because they contain free electrons and these absorb energy of all wavelengths which, when emitted, cause high reflectivity; glasses are transparent to visible light because they do not contain voids or flaws with dimensions close to the wavelength of light. As each of these, and many more, physical explanations of the appearance of matter was unfolded to me, my interest blossomed.
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