text: In simple cases there is only one grain or one type of material in the area used for collecting a diffraction pattern. However, often there is more than one. If they are in different areas then the diffraction pattern will be a combination. In addition there can be one grain on top of another, in which case the electrons that go through the first are diffracted by the second. Electrons have no memory (like many of us), so after they have gone through the first grain and been diffracted, they traverse the second as if their current direction was that of the incident beam. This leads to diffraction spots which are the vector sum of those of the two (or even more) reciprocal lattices of the crystals, and can lead to complicated results. It can be difficult to know if this is real and due to some novel material, or just a case where multiple crystals and diffraction is leading to odd results.