Scientists Just Proved the Existence of ‘Liquid Glass’

Описание: First predicted nearly 20 years ago, researchers have finally (and accidentally) proved the existence of a new state of matter: 'liquid glass'.
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Glass is not a very slow moving liquid as some like to claim, unless we’re talking cosmic time scales, but it is an unusual solid. While crystals tend to line up in neat orderly patterns, glass plays by different rules. Its structure is random and unpredictable, so it’s known as an amorphous solid. While we tend to think of the silica based material used for windows and phone screens as glass, any rigid amorphous solid can be one. Plastic, for example, is a glass too.

Why glass forms this way, why it doesn’t line up into neat rows except under theoretically impossible conditions—that is the mystery that keeps drawing scientists back to this material. And that’s why one group based out of Germany decided to try something new. They mixed plastic particles that ranged from one to ten micrometers in diameter with a solvent to form what’s called a colloid. A solvent is just a substance in which materials can dissolve to form a solution and colloids can be anything from jam to milk.

Colloids can form glass and are easy to study because the particles in them are much bigger than atomic scale and can be observed under a microscope. From there, scientists can draw conclusions about what’s happening in other materials at smaller scales. Glass experiments with colloids are hardly new, but until now they had always been done with spherical nanoparticles.

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Read More:
Scientists Have Created a New State of Matter: 'Liquid Glass'
https://www.vice.com/en/article/wx8pp...
"'Liquid glass' may sound like a flashy new lipgloss or a slick decorative material, but it’s actually something much more substantive: a new state of matter."

Glass Is Sorta Liquid, Sorta Solid, and Fully Weird. Here's the Secret.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/scie...
"People who investigate scientific topics either love or hate glass, which is a confusing none-of-the-above unicorn: neither fully liquid nor fully solid, exhibiting some properties of each, but nothing conclusive. New science may finally help us understand why glass looks like a liquid deep down, but is structurally sound enough to be part of our homes and other structures."

Researchers report new state of matter described as 'liquid glass'
https://phys.org/news/2021-01-state-l...
"Using a model system involving suspensions of tailor-made ellipsoidal colloids, the researchers uncovered a new state of matter, liquid glass, where individual particles are able to move yet unable to rotate—complex behavior that has not previously been observed in bulk glasses."
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