The wild, improbable search for natural quasicrystals

The first known examples of quasicrystals were synthesized in the laboratory over four decades ago, but could Nature have beaten us to the punch? Most thought that was impossible: how could such exotic and fragile atomic arrangements arise naturally? This talk will describe the decades-long effort to prove the skeptics wrong, resulting in one of the strangest scientific stories you are ever likely to hear, and one that continues to this day.