You cracked a puzzle about the structure of strange crystals called approximants that had gone unsolved for eight years. Tell us more.
Sven: Approximants are related to quasicrystals, which are ordered atomic structures, but with symmetries that were believed to be impossible, for example fivefold symmetry. The approximants we studied have fivefold and 10-fold symmetry.
The result was Linus’s name on a paper that was published in this month. What did you make of that?
Linus: It’s rare and strange and cool. I don’t know how many other 10-year-old kids have done this.…
