The wild, improbable search for natural quasicrystals
Higgs Centre colloquium
The wild, improbable search for natural quasicrystals
- Event time: 1:00pm until 2:00pm
- Event date: 22nd July 2026
- Speaker: Paul Steinhardt (Princeton)
- Location: Anatomy Lecture Theatre (room 425), Doorway 3, Medical School, Teviot Place, EH8 9AG
Event details
The first known examples of quasicrystals were synthesized in the laboratory over four decades ago, but could Nature have beaten us to the punch? Most thought that was impossible: how could such exotic and fragile atomic arrangements arise naturally? This talk will describe the decades-long effort to prove the skeptics wrong, resulting in one of the strangest scientific stories you are ever likely to hear, and one that continues to this day.
Event resources
About Higgs Centre colloquia
The Higgs Centre Colloquia are a fortnightly series of talks aimed at a wide-range of topical Theoretical Physics issues..