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The dispersion and self-assembly of sands in water (click to see the movie)

The dispersion phase of sands in glyceryl (click to see the movie)

The dispersion and self-assembly of sands in 1% aqueous polyox solution (sequence 1)

Click to see the movie of initial dispersion	Elapsed time: 3 minutes	Elapsed time: 10 minutes
Elapsed time: 30 minutes	Elapsed time: 2 hours	Click to see the movie clip which shows the process of the assembly of two clusters of particles.
Elapsed time: 5 hours	Elapsed time: 12 hours	Elapsed time: 24 hours

The dispersion and self-assembly of sands in 1% aqueous polyox solution (sequence 2)

Click to see the movie of initial dispersion	Elapsed time: 20 minutes	Elapsed time: 1 hour
Elapsed time: 2 hours	Elapsed time: 5 hours	Elapsed time: 12 hours
Elapsed time: 24 hours

Aluminum disks (short cylinders with circular cross sections), bricks (with square sections) and cubes can hang in the water/air interface at the sharp edges. The diameter and height of the disks are 1/8" and 1/16", respectively; the dimension of the bricks is 1/8" x 1/8" x 1/16"; the length of the side of the cubes is 1/8".

14 particles with circular cross-section assemble (click to see the movie)

Elapsed time: 0 second

Elapsed time: 60 seconds

Elapsed time: 200 seconds

Two particles with circular cross-section attract (click to see the movie)

14 particles with square cross-section assemble (click to see the movie)

Elapsed time: 0 second

Elapsed time: 142 seconds

Elapsed time: 220 seconds. Click here and here to see the final configuration.

Two particles with square cross-section attract (click to see the movie)

Six cubic particles assemble; three particles sunk when collision happened. (click to see the movie)