One language usage question, and one content question:

"Melted sand"?? Isn't it "molten sand"? Is my hunch completely wrong, or is the author not a native speaker? Neither am I, but meldet sand sounds so weird to my ears.

    This all happened in a matter of seconds, so atoms didn’t have time to arrange into stable structures,[...]

• thejohnconway

  today at 9:19 AM

  To my ears “Molten” would imply that the sand is currently in liquid form. The sense ”melted” is used here, as having been melted, seems right. You melt sand to get molten sand, right?

• peyton

  today at 9:14 AM

  The sand melted, yielding a type of glass. Melt emphasizes a change.

https://web.archive.org/web/20260516000259/https://www.scien...

What was special about the first nuclear test, rather than the thousands of others, at least hundreds of which were also in the Nevada desert?

Obviously it's historically significant, and the new forms of matter were first discovered there , so that's why trinitite is named after the site. But 80 years later, wouldn't we expect the other bomb sites to have just as many interesting chemical reactions?

• lightsighter

  today at 8:50 AM

  The Trinity test took place in New Mexico, not Nevada.

The second image from the article looks like caelid map from elden ring

> The only other known naturally forming quasicrystal was found inside meteorite fragments

Does it really count as "naturally forming" if we had to artificially construct and detonate a nuke during a carefully conducted experiment to create this one?

• Towaway69

  today at 9:10 AM

  We’re a product of nature, it’s mistaken to believe we are above nature or that nuclear weapons aren’t also part of nature.

  We’re also very much dependent on nature and natural forces.

  So everything we do is, even if many steps removed, still an act of nature.

  • autoexec

    today at 9:19 AM

    Diamonds are also product of nature, but when we grow them in a lab they aren't often considered to be "naturally formed".

  • 4gotunameagain

    today at 9:14 AM

    This is a valid argument, albeit a pointless one.

    We use the term natural specifically to distinguish between the.. natural and artificial.

    A term like that is necessary.

Sounds like the plot of a B movie...

• rectangleboy

  today at 6:30 AM

  Something like this came up in Robert R. McCammon's 1987 book Swan Song[1], one of the first novels to win the Bram Stoker award[2] for Best Novel (alongside Stephen King's Misery that year).

  One of the survivors finds a glass ring (something like trinitite) among the post-nuclear-blast rubble of Saks Fifth Avenue[3] in New York and sees visions of the future (or something) through it.

  [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swan_Song_(McCammon_novel) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bram_Stoker_Award#External_lin... [3] my memories of this book may be embellishing this a bit....

  • Schiendelman

    today at 6:45 AM

    Swan Song, coincidentally, is getting a pilot as a TV series. I'm not sure if it's gotten stuck in development hell or if it's actually going somewhere, it's only been 18 months or so since screenwriting started.

  • jdkoeck

    today at 7:36 AM

    Interesting! Is it any good? Did it age well?

• asimovDev

  today at 8:44 AM

  Found footage movie, combining Trinity Test and Philadelphia Experiment maybe? I think it has legs

• TurdF3rguson

  today at 8:39 AM

  For God's sake man! You must learn to shield your thoughts from the crystals!

• 0xEF

  today at 8:35 AM

  Or the start of a new cult?

  Which could also result in a B movie, I guess.

While the news is interesting in itself, I found the lack of illustrations disappointing.

When discussing new novel molecular structures, one would think providing a concrete visuals of what they look like more interesting than human-scale photos of materials containing them?

Oxen Free prequel incoming

Its not “where is the crystal” its “when is the crystal”

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