A Quasi-Quasicrystal

An anonymous reader sends along a link to a mindbending article in Science News on quasicrystals — odd materials with a structure partway between order and disorder. Now researchers have found something even odder: a material that's partway between a quasicrystal and a regular crystal. The order in the new structure is provided by the Fibonacci sequence. It was constructed with plastic beads and laser beams, so no new materials science inventions are on the horizon. "'We are absolutely sure that this structure should have properties that are not usual,' Mikhael says, because materials with odd structures almost always do. Now they just have to figure out what those properties are."

Comments

Anyone else find that quote hilarious?

[haltenfrauden27]

"'We are absolutely sure that this structure should have properties that are not usual,' Mikhael says, because materials with odd structures almost always do."

Sounds like something out of a Monty Python sketch.

Seriously, though, I'd rather hear about what interesting/new discoveries come out of this strange material than just hear about the possibility of its existence.

Re:Anyone else find that quote hilarious?

[Paradigm_Complex]

Seriously, though, I'd rather hear about what interesting/new discoveries come out of this strange material than just hear about the possibility of its existence.

When that's announced people will complain that the information is pretty useless and would rather hear about practical applications found for it.
When that's announced people will complain about why they haven't heard about this before. Others will complain about how it was on digg years ago and how slashdot is slow.

So shut up and discuss the interesting stuff we have know now :D
Or get high and stare at the trippy pictures :D
Or make an off topic meme-based joke :(

Re:Anyone else find that quote hilarious?

[dwater]

"We are absolutely sure that this structure should have properties that are not usual,' Mikhael says, because materials with odd structures almost always do."

Right. What kind of logic does this guy use?

"We are absolutely sure it should have 'something'... because ... others almost always do..."

"We're...100%....80%....60%..." Add a few more even 'less certain' words, like "surely", "perhaps", "maybe" and the confidence in his assertion would have dropped from 100% certainty all the way to 0% certainty in a single sentence.

I mean, hedging your bets or what? This guy should be a politician.

"found" or "constructed"

[ulash]

Which one is it? The summary needs to make up its mind. Either it is something that occurs naturally (and TFA seems to suggest otherwise) in which case it would be "found" or it is something cooked up in a lab which would make it "constructed".

Re:"found" or "constructed"

[renoX]

Both!

Maybe you should read TFA: it was both found and constructed, found because they didn't expect it, constructed because it's not something which occurs naturally.