《凝聚态物理导论》Frontiers+in+Correlated+Matter.docVIP

Frontiers in Correlated Matter: Physicists meet to discuss the?intellectual? challenges? of complex matter. Reported by Piers Coleman and Leo Kadanoff IntroductionHard Matter Soft MatterBig Questions Introduction One of the great surprises about matter is that as it becomes more complex, it develops new, often quite unexpected, classes of behavior.? The rigid crystallinity of a snowflake, the levitation of superconductors, the elasticity of rubber, the formation and stability of cells in organisms, are each examples of properties that emerge from new correlations amongst the basic building blocks of matter.? Understanding of such correlated matter has strong bearing on the development of new materials, but it also continues to shed light on fundamental physics, and is a topic of great current interest in condensed matter physics.Early in August, leading condensed physicists convened for a summit on Frontiers in Correlated Matter in Snowmass, Colorado.? The meeting was sponsored by the Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter (ICAM), a? consortium of Universities and Laboratories committed to research into the principles that govern collective behavior in matter.? ICAM conceived ``Frontiers in Correlated Matter as a way of bringing together leading condensed meatter physicists across a broad spectrum of research, ranging from hard? matter in solid form,? to soft and biological matter.? All participants were invited to discuss the intellectual challenges of this frontier field and devise new ways of projecting its excitement to the public. Piers Coleman of Rutgers University and Leo Kadanoff of Chicago University acted as rapporteurs for the meeting. The central part of the meeting was a set of scientific discussions, in which each speaker was invited to lead an interactive discussion about the questions surrounding their research. Several members of the science outreach community were also invited to participate in the meeting. In a small outreach workshop w