The Second Kind of Impossible: The Quest for a New Form of Matter

When leading Princeton physicist Paul Steinhardt began working in the 1980s, scientists thought they knew all conceivable forms of matter. “The Second Kind of Impossible” is the story of Steinhardt’s 35-year-long quest to challenge conventional wisdom.

Steinhardt’s discoveries chart a new direction in science. They not only change our ideas about patterns and matter, but also reveal new truths about the processes that shaped our solar system. The underlying science is important, simple and beautiful-and Steinhardt’s first-hand account is an engaging scientific thriller.

Paul J. Steinhardt is the Albert Einstein Professor in Science at Princeton University, where he is on the faculty of both the departments of Physics and Astrophysical Sciences. He is the co-founder and director of the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science. He received the Dirac Medal and other prestigious awards for his work on the early universe and novel forms of matter. He is the author of “The Second Kind of Impossible: The Extraordinary Quest for a New Form of Matter”, and the co-author, with Neil Turok, of “Endless Universe”, which describes the two competing ideas in cosmology to which he contributed. With his student Dov Levine, Steinhardt first invented the theoretical concept of quasicrystals before they were synthesized in a laboratory. More than three decades later, with Luca Bindi, he guided the team that led to the discovery of three different natural quasicrystals in the Kamchatka Peninsula. In 2014, the International Mineralogical Association named a new mineral Steinhardtite in his honor.

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