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."

Re:Anyone else find that quote hilarious?

[dontmakemethink]

"'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 George Dubya Bush paraphrasing Yoda.

Plastic beads, like you make a necklace out of?

[AlienIntelligence]

Well, for those that didn't RTFA, I did for
you... and no... they didn't go to a piece
goods shop and buy a sack of necklace beads.

FTA:
To simplify matters, the team set out to create a quasicrystal from micron-sized plastic beads called colloidal particles.

For those unfamiliar with colloidals, it is
from the Greek work kolla, meaning glue as the
first colloids were just that. Particulate size
is such that surface area is greater than volume
thus the particulates tend not to settle from
gravity.

They're pretty useful in everyday life. Some
common items would be some aerosol sprays,
shotcrete for your pool out back and the yummy
emulsion, mayonnaise!

These in TFA however are just micron sized beads
of plastic.

-AI

Not new, really.

[Anonymous Coward]

In the 90s, I was a PhD student in theorethical physics. One of the paper I read showed a crystal with a structure based on the fibonacci sequence. Such structures were also realised in superlattices at LinkÃping University, Sweden, in a cooperation between the theoretical physics group and the thin film group. You could contact Dr. Rolf Riklund for the details, his PhD student did the study.
 

Re:ANKOS?

[oodaloop]

Every other reference to Wolfram on /. seems to be rather derogatory. He's seen as stealing others' ideas and shamelessly self-promoting. His "A New Kind of Science", at 1200 pages, was self-published and unedited. For these reasons and others, he doesn't seem to have the highest reputation, though despite it all I found ANKOS pretty amazing.