Basic research often has its beginnings with an elemental wonder at the world around us.

In the case of Richard Riman, professor of materials science and engineering at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, pondering how crystals grow in caves, how ice crystallizes in beautiful and transparent shapes, and how snow solidifies into ice started him thinking about the kind of work he would like to do as a research professor.

Perhaps there was a way to make ceramics using water instead of high-temperature furnaces, he thought. He studied how engineers densified arctic fields of snow and ice to create airplane landing strips and how shellfish make ceramics at low temperatures. Reviewing the literature, he found work conducted by researchers in Japan using water. However, this approach still required high temperature and high pressure.