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http://aluminiuminsider.com/researchers-confirm-discovery-floating-aluminium/
Like most common metals, aluminium lacks natural buoyancy. However, with a little rearranging of the metal’s natural molecular structure, one can produce an ultra-light crystalline form of the metal that is actually less dense than water and, as a result, floats upon it.
Research conducted by Utah State University Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry professor Alexander Boldyrev and published in the latest issue of The Journal of Physical Chemistry C has yielded just such a crystalline form using computational modeling.
“My colleagues’ approach to this challenge was very innovative,” explained Boldyrev. “They started with a known crystal lattice, in this case, a diamond, and substituted every carbon atom with an aluminum tetrahedron.”
Boldyrev’s colleagues, namely Iliya Getmanskii, Vitaliy Koval, Rusian Minyaev, and Vladimir Minkin of Southern Federal University in Rostov-on Don, Russia, confirmed the structure which is metastable and has a density of 0.61 grams per cubic centimeter. By comparison, conventional aluminium possesses a density of 2.7 grams per cubic centimeter.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 26 2017, @03:56PM
It's a very transient state. Just after the finish of a rant, there is a very brief pause before the intake of breath that powers the next rant.