friends who have seen the Big Bang Theory are probably familiar with Sheldon's "bazinga". This was originally just a mantra of a virtual character without much meaning, but it triggered the minds of a group of researchers: they actually made BaZnGa, a crystal formed by a combination of barium, zinc and gallium.

(at the moment, I am as confused as all of you here. )

Paul Canfield, a researcher at Iowa State University, and his team carried out this magical exploration of ideas. They saw the elements barium, zinc and gallium spell out the line in the show and thought that perhaps no one had ever tried to actually put them together to make a new material.

so they decided to really try it, and imagined all kinds of possibilities: maybe a new material could be born. Like high temperature superconductors? Or maybe these elements combine to form a very special quasicrystal structure?

in the end, they really succeeded in getting a BaZnGa-bound crystal. Its structure is shown in the image below, where the red ball represents barium, and other green, cyan and blue positions can be occupied by zinc and gallium.

however, in further testing, this new BaZnGa material did not show any outstanding properties. In other words, it probably has no practical value. The brainstorming process of _ (: creative "∠) _

was fun, and the researchers wrote it as a paper and published it on the preprint website arxiv.

anyway, it's kind of fascinating. But at least the researchers let us know one thing: BaZnGa, it can really exist.

related report: https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/the-big-bang-theory-inspires-discovery-of-new-compound-baznga/3007707.article

thesis: https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.09872v1

Do you want to shop knee length cocktail dresses to appear delightfully charming and bring your figure clearly? Our stylish options are gentle on your pocket.