Home Made Crystals ✦ Limited Time

| Compound | Appearance | Growing Time | Difficulty | Key Trait | | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | | | Small, white cubes | 1-2 weeks | Easy | Very stable, cubic habit | | Sugar (Sucrose) | Large, glassy, translucent prisms | 1-3 weeks | Medium | Edible (rock candy) | | Borax (Sodium tetraborate) | Chunky, octahedral, translucent | 24-48 hours | Very Easy | Fastest growth, robust |

So boil a pot of water. Stir in a cup of borax. And wait. The geometry is already there, hidden in the liquid, waiting to remember itself. home made crystals

When you dissolve a solid (solute) into a liquid (solvent), you create a solution. If you add so much solute that no more can dissolve, you have a saturated solution. Heat the liquid, and its capacity to hold solute increases dramatically. As this hot, supersaturated solution cools or evaporates, the solute molecules can no longer remain dispersed. They begin to bump into one another and lock into place, forming tiny nuclei. Once a nucleus forms, it acts like a magnet, attracting additional molecules to its exposed faces, layer by layer, until a visible crystal grows. Not all crystals are created equal. The choice of compound determines speed, fragility, and aesthetic. | Compound | Appearance | Growing Time |