>"Crystals are usually good at conducting heat. By definition, their atomic structure is highly organized, which allows atomic vibrations—heat—to flow through t

>"Crystals are usually good at conducting heat. By definition, their atomic structure is highly organized, which allows atomic vibrations—heat—to flow through them as a wave. Glasses, on the other hand, are terrible at conducting heat. Their internal structure is disordered and random, which means that vibrations instead hop from atom to atom as they pass through. [...] The team discovered that BaTiS3, along with several other crystalline solids, possessed "glass-like" thermal conductivity. Not only is its thermal conductivity comparable to those of disordered glasses, it actually gets worse as temperature goes down, which is the opposite of most materials." PDS: Sounds like it would be a great material to use in the lining of a future spacecraft... Also, could be used in future clothing, if someone could figure out how to make fabric out of it... >"In fact, its thermal conductivity at cryogenic temperatures is among the worst ever observed in any fully dense (nonporous) solid. [...] The team found that the titanium atom in each BaTiS3 crystal exists in what is known as a double-well potential—that is, there are two spatial locations in the atomic structure where the atom wants to be. The titanium atom existing in two places at the same time gives rise to what is known as a "two-level system." In this case, the titanium atom has two states: a ground state and an excited state. Passing atomic vibrations are absorbed by the titanium atom, which goes from the ground to the excited state, then quickly decays back to ground state. The absorbed energy is emitted in the form of a vibration and in a random direction." PDS: How is this effect different than heat/thermal noise/electronic impedance/radiation, but at the appropriate scale? Or, to reverse the question, how are those phenomena different than this? >"The overall effect of this absorption and emission of vibrations is that energy is scattered rather than cleanly transferred. An analogy would be shining a light through a frosted glass, with the titanium atoms as the frost; incoming waves deflect off of the titanium, and only a portion make their way through the material."