Posted: Jul 31, 08 6:32am

Not long ago there was a discussion about glass as a state of matter.

Conventional wisdom states that glassy materials, such as common window glass, result when frustration prevents the atoms from forming a well-ordered crystal structure, and the material freezes into a disordered state like a frozen liquid.

Well, now scientists have explained how an apparently crystallized substance can continue to be in a glass state.

They call it spin glass and it has to do with the magnetic moment of atoms being frozen before reaching their desired state.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080728193229.htm