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Dan Shechtman Wins Chemistry Nobel For Quasicrystals
Stirling Newberry writes with word that Dan Shechtman of Israel's Technion has won the Nobel prize in chemistry for his discovery of quasicrystals, and provides a short description of why quasicrystals are exciting:
"Quasicrystals fill space completely, but do not repeat, even though they show self-similar patterns, the way pi has order, but doesn't repeat. That is, they tessellate in an ordered way, but do not have repeating cells. In art, Girih tiles showed the essential property of being able to cover an infinite space, without repeating. In mathematics, Hao Wang came up with a set of tiles that any Turing Machine could be represented by, and conjectured that they would eventually always repeat. He turned out to be wrong, and over the next decades, tiles that did not repeat, but showed order, were discovered, most famously, though not first, by Penrose. Physically, when x-rays diffract, that is are scattered, from a crystal, they form a discrete lattice. Quasicrystals also have an ordered diffraction pattern, and it tiles the way ordered non-repeating tiles do. Quasicrystal patterns were known before Shechtman labelled them. So why care? Because crystals have only certain symmetries, and that determines their physical properties. Quasicrystals can have different symmetries, and do not bind regularly, and so different physical properties – which means new kinds of materials. Some examples: highly ductile steel, and, in something that is a bit of a by-word among people who study them, cooking utensils."
Quasicrystals, now there's a blast from the past. Why didn't he win this about ten years ago, I wonder?
a,e,i,o,u and sometimes w and y (at be if of up cwm by)
At last - crystals worthy of stargate! http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Control_crystal
blog.sam.liddicott.com
That link leads to US Patent 5,204,191.
So I guess life imitates art. Where is the Slashdot knife and fork patent pending icon?
Have gnu, will travel.
Self-similar, potentially infinite and never repeating? Sounds like the physical equivalent of a fractal to me.
I hope these new materials will allow us to build a Space Elevator so we can put a lot of mass into space and get off this rock.
I (briefly) took a look at the link to the cooking utensils link and am still not quite sure why quasicrystals are useful for that application.
Is it because since the patterns NEVER repeat so it is impossible (or extremely unlikely) for two surfaces to "lock" together? Like when you have some nested plastic cups, if each one had different patterns from one another they would always be easy to separate. So does this make cooking utensils "non-stick?".
In that case wouldn't quasicrystals be useful for a number of friction reducing applications? Like the afore-mentioned application, if you had some plastic cups with extruded quasicrystal PATTERNS, the cups would never stick! On a smaller scale, if paper had a very subtle quasicrystal "grain" embossed or watermarked on it, you would have jam free printer paper! Or if printed on currency, money that wouldn't stick together (that's a real problem here in Vietnam with its sticky polymer based notes).
I'm sure you can think of lots of additional applications! (How about plastic wrap that doesn't stick to itself?). It's the anti-Velcro!
Likewise an (equally brief) reading of the other links reveals that the random "periodicity" (I know this is the wrong way to describe it) of quasicrystals extends down to one dimension (not just two and three). Well how about "up" to the fourth dimension (Time)? Are there any applications that could take advantage of a quasicrystal-esque time sampling? Would measurements of various phenomenon be improved by getting rid of time periodicity? I wonder what movies would look like if frames were shot at a quasi periodic frame rate, still high enough to give the illusion of movement, but perhaps getting rid of various motion artifacts.
Anyway, good to see Life imitating Math!
Is it because since the patterns NEVER repeat so it is impossible (or extremely unlikely) for two surfaces to "lock" together?
I was thinking the same thing. If lack of periodicity is a key, would a metallic glass have the same non-stick properties as a quasi-crystal metal? Well, did some Googling and found this: Lunac 1 Metallic Glass coating.
So, I think there's a connection.
I (briefly) took a look at the link to the cooking utensils link and am still not quite sure why quasicrystals are useful for that application.
Attempt at a joke? A peanut brittle is an amorphous glass, and if it crystalizes, you just end up with a mess. Also I think a quasi-crystalline fudge would have excellent texture.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Exactly what order does pi have, other than approaching the ratio of circumference to diameter?
if you had some plastic cups with extruded quasicrystal PATTERNS, the cups would never stick! On a smaller scale, if paper had a very subtle quasicrystal "grain" embossed or watermarked on it, you would have jam free printer paper! Or if printed on currency, money that wouldn't stick together (that's a real problem here in Vietnam with its sticky polymer based notes).
Wouldn't help. A counterexample would be contact cement (rubber cement) which is non-crystalline.
I wonder what movies would look like if frames were shot at a quasi periodic frame rate, still high enough to give the illusion of movement, but perhaps getting rid of various motion artifacts.
Bullet Time.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
In that case wouldn't quasicrystals be useful for a number of friction reducing applications?... On a smaller scale, if paper had a very subtle quasicrystal "grain" embossed or watermarked on it, you would have jam free printer paper!
Or toilet tissue:
http://docs.law.gwu.edu/facweb/claw/penrose.htm
Oh, and the main problem I found with Vietnamese notes was the exchange rate, like trying to pay for a 20,000 taxi fare with a 200,000 - quite different!
The cooking utensil link isn't very useful, however apparently the deal is that the coating is non-stick, quite hard (thus doesn't wear out like Teflon) and can handle high heat.
when ever they try to get these crystals, the sleestak show up.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Could this theory also be used to help break encryption?
don't deserve tolerance. Judging by your post, I can see why that would make you upset.
... a quasicrystal made of graphene!
The coating discussed uses a stable quasi-crystal to be "non-stick." The original quasi-crystals discovered were only "meta-stable," meaning that heat and kinetic energy could disrupt them. The patent linked to is one of the earliest, if not the earliest, quasi-crystal patent. It's a bit of an in joke among people who study quasicrystals that the first useful application of a new form of organization of matter was in making frying pans.
Fugue for Aaron Swartz
That girih, that's Farsi for "knot," patterns were created 500 years ago that produce non-periodic penrose patterns - see the article by Lu in Science Magazine from a few years back: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/315/5815/1106.short shows that math sometimes imitates art too.
Fugue for Aaron Swartz
med, physics, chemistry, 3 for 3.
Given that Jews don't really stand out from the norm in math and physics competitions, you have to attribute award success to hard work and dedication (the same formula that allow Jews to dominate Hollywood for instance).
Well, let's start an alternative award called `The Real Nobel Prize`, clearly it's off track (no troll intended),
unless there already is an alternative.
Awards aren't that great but it's nice to recognise someone and say thanks right
A blog I run for the wealth