How does the random close-packing model describe metallic glasses?

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The random close-packing model is the primary structural framework used to describe metallic glasses, such as gold-silicon alloys.

While metallic glasses lack the long-range order found in crystalline metals, this model suggests they possess well-defined short-range order. It is not "random" in the same sense as the structure of a gas. Instead, the model can be conceptualized by imagining a collection of marbles being swiftly scrunched together in a paper bag; the atoms are packed as densely as possible without forming a repeating crystalline lattice.1