The Impossibility of the Second Kind

“The Impossibility of the Second Kind” – is an exciting story about how Paul Steinhardt, a physicist and professor at Princeton University, predicted a new type of matter – the quasicrystal – thereby shaking the century-old notions of the laws of physics. The investigation and search for this rare crystalline structure began in the early 1980s when Steinhardt first suggested the existence of quasicrystals. Studying abstract patterns, Steinhardt and his graduate student found a loophole in one of the most established laws of physics and, using it, realized that there was a possibility of creating new forms of matter. Aiming to prove the existence of quasicrystals in nature, Steinhardt embarks on a global scientific journey from Princeton to Italy and the distant mountains of Kamchatka, challenging skeptics and breaking their notions of the impossible.