The leading answer is a rather inelegant, two-page equation. With Altman's measurements, Grier, graduate student Eric Dufresne and their MIT colleagues can more precisely compare the various competing answers with the experimental data and see which fits best. There is more at stake here than intellectual curiosity. Altman's work has practical implications for Grier's ongoing research in the study of microscopic materials that spontaneously organize themselves into structures so small they would be impossible to make any other way. Self-assembling materials that manipulate light are likely to be involved in the next generations of communications and computing devices, Grier said.
Many scientists begin their research days washing bottles.
Grier did that himself, and he remembers the experience fondly. There are so many good questions attached to these systems that one person really doesn't have enough time to pursue them all. So far, Chicago's undergraduates have proven equal to the task. Even in places where the academic standards are very high, it's not that common to find the focus and drive of the people who choose to come here. These really are extraordinary undergraduates.