A GROUP of scientists in the UK and Switzerland have invented what they claim is the most difficult maze ever created.
The team, led by physicist Felix Flicker of the University of Bristol, created pathways called irregularly repeating patterns.
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The resulting labyrinths describe a strange form of matter known as quasicrystals.
“When we looked at the line shapes we constructed, we noticed that they formed incredibly complex mazes,” Flicker explained in a press release.
“The sizes of the later mazes grow exponentially – and there are an infinite number of them.”
The experiment was based in part on the Knight moving around a chessboard.
In what is known as a knight’s turn, the piece visits each square of the chessboard only once before returning to its starting square.
This is known as a “Hamiltonian path”, which traverses a graph and touches each vertex exactly once.
Physicists constructed infinite and ever-increasing Hamiltonian paths in the irregular structures that describe matter known as quasicrystals.
In terms of their structure, quasicrystals are somewhere between glass and regularly ordered crystals such as salt or quartz.
To relate to the chessboard analogy, quasicrystalline atoms occur in patterns that repeat irregularly and asymmetrically, not unlike a chessboard.
They are also extremely difficult to reach. Only three natural quasicrystals have ever been found, all in the same meteorite.
Hamiltonian paths form complex mazes with a clear starting point and an exit – and although they may look complicated, they are quite easy to solve.
But beyond a form of entertainment, Flicker believes that Hamiltonian cycles can have “practical purposes that span different fields of science.”
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The results of the experiment also show that quasicrystals can be efficient adsorbents.
The term describes the ability of solids to attract molecules or solution gases that touch their surface.
One application of adsorption is carbon capture and storage, in which carbon dioxide molecules are prevented from entering the atmosphere.
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“Our work also shows that quasicrystals can be better than crystals for some adsorption applications,” said co-author Shobha Singh, a PhD researcher in Physics at Cardiff University.
“For example, bent molecules will find more ways to land on the irregularly arranged atoms of quasicrystals. Quasicrystals are also brittle, meaning they break easily into small grains. This maximizes their surface area for absorption.”
Efficient adsorption can also make quasicrystals excellent candidates for catalysts—substances that lower the energy needed to ignite a chemical reaction.
A possible application is the production of ammonia fertilizers used in agriculture.
What is a quasicrystal?
Quasicrystals may look symmetrical – but they are actually made up of irregularly repeating patterns.
Quasicrystals are a form of matter with atoms that are ordered but not periodic.
This means that their pattern expands to fill all available space, but is not symmetrical.
Matter is structurally somewhere between glasses, which are known as amorphous solids, and crystals, which are composed of regular and regular patterns.
Quasicrystals appear to be formed from two different structures assembled into a non-repeating array,
They rarely occur naturally – three were found in a meteorite that landed in Russia’s Khatyrka region in 2011.
The third and final example was found in 2016 and was only a few micrometers across.
It was discovered by a team of geologists led by Luca Bindi from the University of Florence in Italy.
Quasicrystals have also been created artificially – notably, during the detonation of the first atomic bomb during the Trinity Test in 1945.
The temperature and pressure of the explosion melted the surrounding sand into a glassy material called trinite.
In May 2021, scientists discovered a quasicrystal in a trinite sample.