“The Self-Repairing Robot § Disappearing Polymorphs”, 1960 ():
[From Analog Magazine, October 1960 (v66, #2), pg87–88.
Part of a larger article on growing crystals and self-organization. Campbell describes two examples:
glycerine, where attempts to freeze it per a German chemist’s research failed and resulted only in a glass, until they contacted him for information and he sent a sample of his glycerine back, which ‘contaminated’ their own samples and resulted in frozen glycerine but now never glass.
EDT: Bell Labs was growing quartz-substitute crystals called EDT which worked perfectly, replacing expensive quartz, until one day a new polymorph showed up, destroying all EDT crystal production. All attempts to recreate EDT failed, but fortunately, the problem of growing quartz had been solved in the mean time, so it was ultimately not a disaster.]