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Physicist Stefano Martiniani has designed an entirely new class of materials that blurs the line between order and chaos. Called gyromorphs, these metamaterials rely on crystal-like geometric structure and liquidlike randomness to block light from penetrating at any angle.
Physicists thought, structurally speaking, that they could not create such hybrid materials. “But this is evidence that you can, under certain constraints,” says Martiniani, of New York University. He likens the gyromorphs’ disorderliness to a crowd of people. You could see through the crowd if individuals stood still in straight lines, but not if they are clustered together in random groups. But there’s order too: From anywhere you stand in a gyromorph crowd, you’ll see a ring of people at a given distance.
