Ice has rarely been viewed at the nanoscale before and the team discovered a one-dimensional chain structure built from pentagon-shaped rings, rather than the more commonly seen hexagonal structures of ice formations like those seen in snowflakes.I'll take their word on the pentagonal part, but is it really a "one-dimensional chain" ?? Don't they just mean a "linear" arrangement. Can something other than a point really be one-dimensional?
My fiancee works with "two dimensional films" in physics. This is not to say that they really have no third dimension it just means that they are thin enough that two dimensional equations best describe them because they are so constrained. My guess is that this is similar (but that is from my limited understanding of this type of thing).
ReplyDeleteI think Mr. Fischer has this one right. I've heard of stuff being described this way, even though it truly is 3-D.
ReplyDeletea point has zero dimensions; a line has one, a plane two, and a solid three. Don't get me started on fractal dimensions.
ReplyDeleteDon't worry.
ReplyDelete