Late morning. You all had a
McDonald's breakfast in Delaware and the boys went to the park for playing with
Kim and Carol. Soon you will be on your way to I-71 and the Lexington/Belview
Exit (165) to meet David and Marsha for lunch at Der Dutchman restaurant in
Amish country. Later, dude. - Amorella
Yesterday
Doug sent me this science article, which is fascinating to read and re-read. In
some way my imagination is attracted to this because it reminds me of a
ballooning cell growth even though it is crystalline -- it grows outwardly from
seeds, though seeds is probably a misnomer.
** **
Q-Glass, New Kind Of Solid, May
Have Been Discovered
The Huffington
Post |
By David Freeman
Posted: 08/12/2013 1:22 pm EDT | Updated:
08/13/2013 3:25 pm EDT
There's no hard evidence yet,
but scientists say they have discovered a substance that may represent a whole
new category of solids.
Dubbed q-glass, the newly
observed substance seems to fall into neither of two familiar categories of
solids--conventional crystals or glasses. Nor does it seem to belong to a more
esoteric family of solids that physicists call quasicrystals.
"Strangest material I
ever saw," one of the researchers behind the discovery, Dr. Lyle Levine of
the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Md.,
said in a written statement. "It's amazing. Everything you can think about
this thing behaves like a crystal, except it isn't."
Ordinary crystalline solids are
composed of orderly arrangements of atoms. In contrast, the atoms that make up
glasses are haphazardly arranged--as if a liquid had been frozen so quickly its
constituent parts didn't have time to arrange themselves. Quasicrystals are
similar to ordinary crystals but differ in certain key ways.
What about q-glass? The
research showed that the q-glass grows outward from “seeds” and that each atom
"knows" where to go. This suggests an ordered structure similar to a
crystal or a quasicrystal. But unlike crystals, q-glass--patches of which were
observed in a rapidly cooled mixture of aluminum, iron, and silicon--doesn't
demonstrate symmetry. That means the atoms that make it up wouldn't align if
you were to rotate a sample of it or try to take out a section and slide it up,
down, in, out, or sideways.
It's too soon to tell whether
q-glass is an important new material or just a scientific curiosity, Levine
told The Huffington Post in an email. But perhaps more important at this
early stage of research is this question: Is q-glass really a new kind of solid
matter?
"I'm not sure,"
Levine told HuffPost. "We currently see two possibilities: one, a
completely new type of atomic structure where the atomic positions are fully
determined...or two, a material that is trying to grow into a more conventional
crystalline or quasicrystalline structure but that experiences some kind of
structural 'frustration' as it forms."
In an effort to pinpoint the
exact nature of q-glass, the researchers performed various tests using Arogonne
National Laboratory's Advanced Photon Source research facility, according to
the statement. But Levine said that it "would require extensive work and verification
by the scientific community" to prove that q-glass is a new solid.
Sounds hard.
A paper describing the research on
q-glass, which was conducted by scientists at NIST and Argonne National Lab,
was published in Physical Review Letters.
From - Huff Post Science, August
14, 2013
** **
You had another good day at a long lunch
with Dave and Marsha -- lots of family chat on both sides. Both of you thought
David was looking good though you and he didn't have much of a chance to say
much you glanced across at each other more than once and you both smiled enough
that Marsha took notice. Good meals plus everyone got a piece of a different
pie made by the Amish. Carol had Dutch apple, Marsha, crème, David, cherry and
you, rhubarb all ala-mode.
2056
hours. Nothing much beats Amish cooking. I haven't had
but maybe one piece of rhubarb pie since my Grandma Orndorff used to make it (not so dry as today).
What I had today was good, but nothing like Grandma's.
I'm sure a lot of people have said those
words or those similar "nothing like grandma's". Post, boy. Enjoy the
rest of the cool night as dusk has just about disappeared from your window
view. - Amorella
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