The seemingly random digits known as prime numbers are not nearly as scattershot as previously thought. A new analysis by Princeton University researchers has uncovered patterns in primes that are similar to those found in the positions of atoms inside certain crystal-like materials. (more…)
A new study challenges the notion that the atomic structure of glass is indistinguishable from that of a liquid — at least for a certain kind of glass called “amorphous ice” that forms when water is cooled to very low temperatures. (more…)
A glass is a curious material in between liquid and solid states of matter, but eventually glass always yields to its solid proclivity by settling into the ordered patterns of a crystal. Or so it was thought. (more…)
Along with eggs, soup and rubber toys, the list of the chicken’s most lasting legacies may eventually include advanced materials such as self-organizing colloids, or optics that can transmit light with the efficiency of a crystal and the flexibility of a liquid.
The unusual arrangement of cells in a chicken’s eye constitutes the first known biological occurrence of a potentially new state of matter known as “disordered hyperuniformity,” according to researchers from Princeton University and Washington University in St. Louis. Research in the past decade has shown that disordered hyperuniform materials have unique properties when it comes to transmitting and controlling light waves, the researchers report in the journal Physical Review E. (more…)
