Love Burned, She Rose Unscathed

"Cough! Yes, but not entirely."

"What are quasi-crystals?"

"Quasi-crystals are a type of crystal structure where the atoms are arranged in a pattern that doesn't repeat periodically, sort of a halfway house between a crystal and an amorphous structure. The guy who discovered them, Dan Shechtman, he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2011 for it."

"Oh, I see... Wait a minute! Nobel what Prize?"

"Chemistry Prize."

"Uh! Aren't we supposed to be interviewing a grad student in biology today?"

How did we end up on physics and chemistry?

"Mr. Reynolds already mentioned that his next question would not be limited to biology." "Yikes! Honestly, this question is a bit tough for an undergrad."

"She answered the earlier questions pretty well, just bad luck getting pinned by Owen..."

"Is it difficult?" Owen spoke up lightly, "Of course, you can choose not to answer."

Roseanne looked up, locking eyes with him: "Got a whiteboard and marker?"

The crux of the matter-"with data support"!

Support your answer with data.

Testing interdisciplinary skills.

"We do." Owen gestured for the staff to prepare.

Soon, the whiteboard was in place, and the marker handed to her.

Roseanne turned around and wrote down a chemical formula.

Then, using the chemical formula as a starting point, she analyzed the atomic structure of quasi-crystals.

There were two important principles involved, namely the icosahedral principle and the golden mean principle.

Under these principles, the simplest quasi-crystal structural model could be obtained, which could explain all the details of the high-resolution images of Al-Mn quasi-crystals. That was knowledge from the field of chemistry.

Then, she moved on to fractal geometry, pattern sequences, correlation measures, and correlation dimensions to further derive formulas for quasi-crystals.

Specifically, the discussion on pattern sequences was divided into 2nd order, 3rd order, and kth order.

That belonged to the realm of mathematics.

As the whiteboard quickly filled with English and numbers, Roseanne switched to the next one.This text is property of Nô/velD/rama.Org.

Only then did the real core steps begin, namely the physical explanation.

Roseanne divided it into two major parts: theoretical physics and applied physics.

The former included three major theorems, seven formulas, and sixteen derived discussions.

She not only wrote them all out but also set scenarios to plug in specific numbers to test their validity. Where direct application was not possible, she simply proceeded to prove it.

Facing a mountain, if you can't go over it, drill through it—simple and brute force, but quite effective.

As for the applied physics part, that was more extensive...

The effects of deformation and heat treatment processes on the properties of 00Cr12Ni9M04Cu2 martensitic stainless steel. Quasi-crystal reinforced Mg-Zn-RE alloy microstructure and properties.

One-dimensional Fibonacci

quasi-crystals diffraction properties, deep undercooling of Al72Ni12C016 alloy, and the solidification behavior of decagonal quasi-crystals, and so on

Roseanne wrote them down one by one, quickly filling the second whiteboard as well.

Owen signaled for the staff to prepare a third whiteboard.

Finally, Roseanne concluded with three conclusive derivation formulas, leaving behind a numerical model for validation, ending perfectly.

She put down the marker, looking towards Owen. "That's my answer."

After a moment, a slight smile appeared on the man's stern face: "Thank you for your answer. You may leave now."

Roseanne's clenched fist relaxed. She gave a polite bow, and turned to leave.

As she left another examiner joked, "Owen, weren't you a bit too harsh

on that student? That queseven

third-year grad students would struggle to answer."