The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine.
Since their discovery in 1982, exotic materials known as quasicrystals have bedeviled physicists and chemists. Their atoms arrange themselves into chains of pentagons, decagons, and other shapes to form patterns that never quite repeat. These patterns seem to defy physical laws and intuition. How can atoms possibly “know” how to form elaborate nonrepeating arrangements without an advanced understanding of mathematics?
“Quasicrystals are one of those things that as a materials scientist, when you first learn about them, you’re like, ‘That’s crazy,’” said Wenhao Sun, a materials scientist at the University of Michigan.
Recently, though, a spate of results has peeled back some