Tony Smith wrote:

> Your ball bearing & glue model sounds good.  I'd replace with glue with
> rubber though.  Anyway, under heat, the atoms are behaving like little
> children holding onto their parents hands - bouncing all over the place, but
> not getting very far.  They're very determined to go somewhere.

Rubber wouldn't show any plastic deformation, and elastic deformation is
already part of the metal balls. There's a point where metal undergoes
permanent deformation. I'm not sure we would get there; considering the
small distances, possibly not. 

> Still, the ball bearing test is a good one.  Downside is it sounds easy to
> do, but isn't.  

I agree with that, and I think all tests to confirm/deny any of the
affirmations here are difficult. There are so many other possible effects,
and the changes are really small. 

I'm still not really convinced there isn't a situation where it won't grow.
There may not be a situation where it shrinks. But I think it is
non-trivial to find that out. 

Gerhard

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