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Summary
The properties of hot melts--from volcanic lava to liquid steel--are difficult to investigate with standard techniques. In his Perspective, Kieffer stresses the advantages of modern spectroscopic methods for elucidating the properties of such melts. He highlights the report by Sinn et al. of inelastic x-ray scattering on levitated samples, which overcomes many of the experimental problems. Together with computer simulations, these experiments are providing detailed insights into the molecular properties of hot melts.