Quasicrystals are materials that are neither periodic nor random.
Why are they important?
To answer this question, maybe it is necessary a philosophical analysis.
When someone ask about the importance of something, is asking how useful it will be to have a better life, for him/her.
"Why will it be useful for me invest my time, my money, my energy on X?".
However, there are many situation where there is not a deterministic answer.
In such case, the answer usually is "it is important because with such study, it is "probable" to find some kind of connection between your problems and their solutions.
There are other cases, where the answer is taking into account that no all good things are practical things.
Sometimes, to have a better life, we are searching for challenges, for beauty, for something that make us feel a new sensation or a strong feeling.
Then we are interesting in aesthetic.
Why is important to invest money on the research of other worlds very far away where it will be so complex to go, such that it will be impossible in our lifetime?
Well, because the idea to have a contact with other civilisations, or just know how probable is that other planets exist, is so exciting.
Of course, there are many other reasons, but the strongest is probably this one.
Why is important understand how it was the universe at the very first nanoseconds? again, the idea of understanding is just exciting.
Well, the most important reason to study quasicrystals is the exciting idea that something was really misunderstand for a long, long time.
Of course, maybe it will give a solution to break the HIV or new wonderful materials, with awesome proprieties, but we don't know if it will happens.
The real reason, why people is studying such materials is just the exciting idea of discover something completely new.
August 2013
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