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In the context of the energy landscape description of supercooled liquids, we propose an explanation for the different behaviour of fragile and strong liquids. Above Goldstein's temperature T x , diffusion is interpreted as a motion in the phase space among saddles of the potential energy. Two mechanisms of diffusion then arise: mechanism A takes place when the system overcomes potential-energy barriers along stable uphill directions, while mechanism B consists in finding unstable downhill directions out of a saddle. Depending on the mutual efficiency of A and B , the usual classification of liquids in fragile and strong is recovered. Moreover, this scenario naturally predicts the possibility of a fragile-to-strong crossover when lowering the temperature.
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