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Distinguishable Particles We noted that one way to make particles "distinguishable" in the statistical mechanical sense was to situate them in a lattice. Lattices imply a regular structure, such as in a crystal, but irregularly packed particles can also be distinguished, as long as the structure is rigid. Recently, a group of physics students at Princeton played a joke on one of their professors. They left Paul Chaiken a 55 gallon drum of M&Ms. Fueled and inspired by his favorite chocolate snack, Prof. Chaiken discovered that the ellipsoidal shape of the M&Ms led to a much more efficient packing than you could get with spheres. In other words, you can get more M&Ms into the drum if they are ellipsoidal than you could if they were spherical. (See A. Donev et al., Science 303, 990 (2004)) |