Uploaded September 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
For over a century, scientists believed crystals had to repeat a single pattern, like wallpaper or tiles. Then in 1982, an astonishing discovery revealed solids with order, but no repetition. These were quasicrystals: once forbidden by the rules of crystallography, now recognized with a Nobel Prize and even found in meteorites from space.
In this podcast episode of Math! Science! History!, Gabrielle explores:
- How quasicrystals broke the old definition of crystals
- The math of Penrose tilings and “forbidden” symmetries
- Why quasicrystals matter today in coatings, catalysts, and photonics
🎧 Listen to the full podcast episode here: mathsciencehistory.libsyn.com/quasicrystals-explained-from-forbidden-symmetry-to-practical-uses
📚 Resources & Further Reading:
Paul J. Steinhardt, The Second Kind of Impossible
Marjorie Senechal, Quasicrystals and Geometry
✨ Subscribe for more stories where math, science, and history collide.
For over a century, scientists believed crystals had to repeat a single pattern, like wallpaper or tiles. Then in 1982, an astonishing discovery revealed solids with order, but no repetition. These were quasicrystals: once forbidden by the rules of crystallography, now recognized with a Nobel Prize and even found in meteorites from space.
In this podcast episode of Math! Science! History!, Gabrielle explores:
- How quasicrystals broke the old definition of crystals
- The math of Penrose tilings and “forbidden” symmetries
- Why quasicrystals matter today in coatings, catalysts, and photonics
🎧 Listen to the full podcast episode here: mathsciencehistory.libsyn.com/quasicrystals-explained-from-forbidden-symmetry-to-practical-uses
📚 Resources & Further Reading:
Paul J. Steinhardt, The Second Kind of Impossible
Marjorie Senechal, Quasicrystals and Geometry
✨ Subscribe for more stories where math, science, and history collide.
