Crystal

Crystal

A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituent atoms, molecules, or ions are arranged in an ordered pattern extending in all three spatial dimensions. In addition to their microscopic structure, large crystals are usually identifiable by their macroscopic geometrical shape, consisting of flat faces with specific, characteristic orientations.

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Famous quotes containing the word crystal:

    The crystal sphere of thought is as concentrical as the geological structure of the globe. As our soils and rocks lie in strata, concentric strata, so do all men’s thinkings run laterally, never vertically.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    In a few days I’ll have lived one score and three days in this vale of tears. On I plod—always bored, often drunk, doing no penance for my faults—rather do I become more tolerant of myself from day to day, hardening my crystal heart with blasphemous humor and shunning only toothpicks, pathos, and poverty as being the three unforgivable things in life.
    F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)

    Opinionated writing is always the most difficult ... simply because it involves retaining in the cold morning-after crystal of the printed word the burning flow of molten feeling.
    Gavin Lyall (b. 1932)