Paul Peter Ewald developed a method for calculating long-range electrostatic lattice potentials. Ewald summation separates the interaction into rapidly converging real-space and reciprocal-space contributions through a Gaussian splitting. The artificial splitting parameter changes the work assigned to each sum, while the complete physical result is unchanged when electric charge and boundary conventions are fixed. This makes lattice electrostatics computationally tractable without simply discarding distant electric charges, and connects crystal calculations with Fourier methods.[ref]
Die Berechnung optischer und elektrostatischer Gitterpotentiale by Paul Peter Ewald. Annalen der Physik 369, 253–287 (1921), transformation of electrostatic lattice sums
A physicist who worked on crystallography and edited a participant-rich history of X-ray diffraction. The volume places experimental photographs, early theoretical arguments and personal recollections together, making it possible to trace how diffraction patterns became evidence for atomic arrangements in crystals. Its individual contributions have separate authors, while Ewald supplied the editorial framework.[ref]
Fifty Years of X-ray Diffraction, edited by Paul Peter Ewald. Volume title, editorial credit and contents
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Paul Peter Ewald (1923–2019) was an influential American microbiologist and biochemist known for his work in the fields of microbial genetics, molecular biology, and the study of bacterial viruses (bacteriophages). He made significant contributions to the understanding of genetic exchange in bacteria and the mechanisms behind bacterial evolution and resistance.