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Author Steinhardt, Paul J., author.

Title The second kind of impossible : the extraordinary quest for a new form of matter / Paul J. Steinhardt.

Publication Info. New York : Simon & Schuster, [2019].
Location Call No. Status
 95th Street Adult Nonfiction  530.41 STE    AVAILABLE
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Description viii, 387 pages, 8 unnumbered leaves of color plates : illustrations (some color) ; 22 cm
Note Includes index.
Summary When leading Princeton physicist Paul Steinhardt began working in the 1980s, scientists thought they knew all the conceivable forms of matter. The Second Kind of Impossible is the story of Steinhardt's thirty-five-year-long quest to challenge conventional wisdom. It begins with a curious geometric pattern that inspires two theoretical physicists to propose a radically new type of matterone that raises the possibility of new materials with never before seen properties, but that violates laws set in stone for centuries. Steinhardt dubs this new form of matter zquasicrystal.y The rest of the scientific community calls it simply impossible. The Second Kind of Impossible captures Steinhardts scientific odyssey as it unfolds over decades, first to prove viability, and then to pursue his wildest conjecturethat nature made quasicrystals long before humans discovered them. Along the way, his team encounters clandestine collectors, corrupt scientists, secret diaries, international smugglers, and KGB agents. Their quest culminates in a daring expedition to a distant corner of the Earth, in pursuit of tiny fragments of a meteorite forged at the birth of the solar system. Steinhardt's discoveries chart a new direction in science. They not only change our ideas about patterns and matter, but also reveal new truths about the processes that shaped our solar system. The underlying science is important, simple, and beautifuland Steinhardt's firsthand account is an engaging scientific thriller.
Subject Solid state physics.
Physicists -- Diaries.
Interstellar matter.
Matter.
ISBN 9781476729923
1476729921
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