I Why are the crystallographic direction indices u,v, and w?

Stenny
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Why are the crystallographic direction indices u,v, and w? And as an add on, why are the miller indices h,k, and l? Why did we pick these letters for each? I’m having a tough time remembering which letters to use and some context might help.
 
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This would go into the history of science forum if we had one. Let me see what I can look up about this.
 
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There's no secret or specific meaning behind 'h,k,l'. They were adopted by Miller in his 1839 treatise on crystallography from an article by Whewell from 1825.

As for 'u,v,w' there's also no relevant meaning to them, they are the closest to 'x,y,z'. Before QM, crystallography was foremost geometry, so one had to use a huge apparatus of letters to distinguish things.
 
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Hi. I have got question as in title. How can idea of instantaneous dipole moment for atoms like, for example hydrogen be consistent with idea of orbitals? At my level of knowledge London dispersion forces are derived taking into account Bohr model of atom. But we know today that this model is not correct. If it would be correct I understand that at each time electron is at some point at radius at some angle and there is dipole moment at this time from nucleus to electron at orbit. But how...
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