Hello, Time Nuts-- For those of you following the thread on glass properties, see: Dual personality of glass explained at last Mike Baker ----------------------------------- See the entire article at: [1]http://tinyurl.com/mqsrjo [2]http://www.newscientist.com/ * 18:00 22 June 2008 by Colin Barras snip Although glass feels like a solid, its molecules cannot quite settle into a regular 3D lattice, instead taking on the disordered arrangement of a liquid. Quite why glass behaves like this has been unclear. snip This geometry is incapable of slotting together, or tessellating, to form the regular 3D lattice characteristic of a solid. But equally they cannot move around freely because they are larger than the original particles. snip Royall thinks that the molecules of real glass takes on the same icosahedral structure, leaving it unable to crystallise into a solid, but not free enough to have liquid-like properties. 'Metallic glass' snip "For a long time, no-one has really shown what the structure of glass is," Royall says, "but we have been able to show how the structure of a glass differs from that of a liquid."
References 1. http://tinyurl.com/mqsrjo 2. http://www.newscientist.com/ _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
