"How does it happen that once a crystal is started, it permits only a particular kind of atom to join on? It happens because the whole system is working toward the lowest possible energy. A growing crystal will accept a new atom if it is going to make the energy as low as possible. But how does it know that a silicon—or an oxygen—atom at some particular spot is going to result in the lowest possible energy? It does it by trial and error. In the liquid, all of the atoms are in perpetual motion. Each atom bounces against its neighbors about 1013 times every second. If it hits against the right spot of growing crystal, it has a somewhat smaller chance of jumping off again if the energy is low. By continually testing over periods of millions of years at a rate of 1013 tests per second, the atoms gradually build up at the places where they find their lowest energy. Eventually they grow into big crystals."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Richard Feynman: (1964). 30–3. The growth of crystals in Chapter 30. The Internal Geometry of Crystals, Vol. II, The Feynman Lectures in Physics
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Crystal
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Crystal
9 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Crystal →
Related Quotes
"Any life form in any realm – mineral, vegetable, animal, or human – can be said to undergo “enlightenment.” It is, ho…"
"You would, at first sight, think that a low-energy electron would have great difficulty passing through a solid cryst…"
"I feel like a white granular mass of amorphous crystals—my formula appears to be isomeric with Spasmotoxin. My auroch…"
"Maybe tomorrow when He looks down Every green field and every town All of his children, every nation There'll be peac…"
"When Dr. W.M. Stanley of the Rockefeller Institute's Princeton station crystallized the virus which produces the mosa…"
"A crystal is like a class of children arranged for drill, but standing at ease, so that while the class as a whole ha…"
"I shall never forget the sight. The vessel of crystallization was three quarters full of slightly muddy water—that is…"
"Tyndall declared that he saw in Matter the promise and potency of all forms of life, and with his Irish graphic lucid…"
"Therefore farewell, ye hills, and ye, ye envineyarded ruins! Therefore farewell, ye walls, palaces, pillars, and dome…"
"Our villa, perhaps, you never have seen; It lies on the slope of the Alban hill; Lifting its white face, sunny and st…"