[At5:29amonJuly161945ahorrificpieceofhistorywascreatedinNewMexico[1945年7月16日の朝5時29分、ニューメキシコ州で恐ろしい歴史の一片が作られた。
The dawn calm was shattered when the American military detonated a plutonium implosion device known as Gadget. The world’s first nuclear bomb test, known as the Trinity test. This moment would change war forever.
The energy released was equivalent to 21 kilotons of TNT and vaporized the 30-meter test tower (98 feet) and the miles of copper wire that connected it to the recording equipment. The resulting fireball fused the tower and copper with the asphalt and desert sand below, creating green glass, a new mineral called trinitite.
Decades later, scientists discovered the secret hidden in a piece of trinitite. This is an unusual form of matter known as a quasicrystal, which was once thought to be impossible.
“Quasicrystals form in extreme environments that rarely exist on Earth.” Los Alamos National Laboratory geophysicist Terry Wallace explains 2021.
“It requires a shocking event with extreme shock, temperature and pressure. We don’t usually see things like that, except for dramatic events like nuclear explosions.”
Most crystals, from the humble table salt to the most durable diamond, follow the same rules. That is, its atoms are arranged in a lattice structure that repeats in three-dimensional space. Quasicrystals break this rule. The pattern in which the atoms of a quasicrystal are arranged does not repeat.
When this concept first appeared in the scientific community in 1984, it was thought that: impossible: Crystals are either ordered or disordered, with no in-between. Then they were discovered in the wild, created both in laboratory settings and in the wild. They were formed deep within a meteorite by thermodynamic shock from events such as hypervelocity impacts.
Knowing that the formation of quasicrystals requires extreme conditions, a team of scientists led by geologist Luca Bindi from the University of Florence in Italy decided to take a closer look at trinitite.
But not the green one. Although they are rare, the researchers observed enough quasicrystals to know that they tend to incorporate metals, so they started looking for a more unusual form of this mineral, red trinitite. Ta. Red trinitite is given its color by evaporated copper wires incorporated within it.
They analyzed six small samples of red trinitite using techniques such as scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. Finally, they hit on one of the samples, a tiny 20-sided particle of silicon, copper, calcium, and iron that has a five-fold rotational symmetry not possible in conventional crystals. This was an “unintended consequence” of warmongering.
“These quasicrystals are impressive in their complexity, but no one yet can tell us why they formed the way they did.” Wallace explained The team’s research was published in 2021.
“But someday scientists and engineers will figure it out, and we’ll be able to open our eyes to a thermodynamic explanation of its formation. Then we can use that knowledge to We hope that it will give us a better understanding of nuclear explosions and detonations.” Ultimately, it will lead to a more complete picture of what nuclear testing means. ”
This discovery is the oldest known anthropogenic quasicrystal and suggests that other natural routes to quasicrystal formation may exist. For example, fulgurite in molten sand forged by lightning strikes and material from meteorite impact sites are both potential sources of wild quasicrystals.
The study could also help better understand illegal nuclear testing, with the goal of ultimately curbing the proliferation of nuclear arms, the researchers said. Studying minerals forged at other nuclear test sites may uncover more quasicrystals, whose thermodynamic properties could serve as tools for nuclear forensics.
“To understand another country’s nuclear weapons, you need to have a clear understanding of that country’s nuclear test program.” Wallace said.
“We typically analyze radioactive debris and gases to understand how the weapon was made and what materials it contains, but those signatures decay. Nuclear detonation Quasicrystals that form in situ can tell us new types of information.”They will exist forever.” ”
This research PNAS.
A previous version of this article was published in May 2021.