Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Science Nerding

From the NYT, an article on how scientists don't really understand the nature of glass -- even though it's solid, it looks like a liquid on the molecular level. It's pretty interesting if you can get your nerd on and remember some of that chemistry and physics from high school, but here's my favorite part:

"Dr. Wolynes and his collaborators came up with a mathematical model to describe this hypothetical, impossible glass, calling it an 'ideal glass.' Based on this ideal glass, they said the properties of real glasses could be deduced, although exact calculations were too hard to perform."

Emphasis mine.

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