The Second Kind of Impossible
The Extraordinary Quest for a New Form of Matter
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4.6 • 8 Ratings
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- $2.99
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
*Shortlisted for the 2019 Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize*
One of the most fascinating scientific detective stories of the last fifty years, an exciting quest for a new form of matter. “A riveting tale of derring-do” (Nature), this book reads like James Gleick’s Chaos combined with an Indiana Jones adventure.
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 matter—one 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 “quasicrystal.” The rest of the scientific community calls it simply impossible.
The Second Kind of Impossible captures Steinhardt’s scientific odyssey as it unfolds over decades, first to prove viability, and then to pursue his wildest conjecture—that 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 beautiful—and Steinhardt’s firsthand account is “packed with discovery, disappointment, exhilaration, and persistence...This book is a front-row seat to history as it is made” (Nature).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In an intriguing blend of science and international adventure, Steinhardt (Endless Universe, coauthor), a Princeton professor of physics and astrophysics, takes readers on a wild ride in search of a new kind of matter. The author's hunt for a rare crystal structure once thought impossible begins in the early 1980s, when he proposed the existence of "quasicrystals" with a unique property called "five-fold symmetry." Months of making paper models and Styrofoam-and-pipe cleaner "arts-and-craft" projects showed how minerals might form such crystals, and despite scoffing from luminaries such as Nobel laureate Linus Pauling, one scientist managed to grow a quasicrystal in 1987. But could quasicrystals exist in nature? The quest takes Steinhardt from Princeton University to Florence, Italy, and ultimately to a remote mountain range in the rugged, bear- and mosquito-infested wilds of Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula. The author's opening discussion of crystallography basics, "cubatic matter," and Penrose tiling demands close attention, but the second half of the book is full of intrigue and adventure, culminating with the epic Kamchatka journey. As a result, a general audience can and should enjoy this original, suspenseful true-life thriller of science investigation and discovery.)
Customer Reviews
Terrific book about a scientific quest
This is a really fascinating book about a new form of matter, quasicrystals, you've probably never heard of. It starts with an abstract concept and over thirty years, makes it real, and ultimately in an amazing field trip to the ends of the earth, finds it in nature. It really highlights the nature of real-life cross-discipline scientific collaboration. Highly recommended if you're interested in science and how it really works.