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  • Book
  • © 1994

Soft Order in Physical Systems

Editors:

  1. Y. Rabin

    1. Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel

    View editor publications

    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  2. R. Bruinsma

    1. University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, USA

    View editor publications

    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

Part of the book series: NATO Science Series B: (NSSB, volume 323)

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Table of contents (30 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
    PDF

  2. An Historical Perspective (Une Perspective Historique)

    1. PDF

  3. Review Papers

    1. Focal Conics Domains in Smectics

      • P. Boltenhagen, M. Kleman, O. D. Lavrentovich
      Pages 5-32
      PDF
    2. PDF

    3. The Adhesion Between Elastomers

      • Elie Raphaël, P.-G. de Gennes
      Pages 57-71
      PDF
    4. PDF

  4. Research Papers

    1. Polymer Physics

      1. Swelling and Uniaxial Extension of Polymer Gels as Seen by Small Angle Neutron Scattering
        • J. Bastide, F. Boué, E. Mendes, A. Hakiki, A. Ramzi, J. Herz
        Pages 99-102
        PDF
      2. PDF
      3. PDF
      4. The Revealing of Heterogeneities by Free Linear Chains in a Network
        • Jyotsana Lal, Jacques Bastide, Rama Bansil, Francois Boué
        Pages 113-116
        PDF
      5. Non-Debye Screening in Polyelectrolyte Solutions
        • Kurt Kremer, Mark J. Stevens, Philip A. Pincus
        Pages 117-123
        PDF
      6. Entropy of Knots and Statistics of Entangled Random Walks
        • Sergei Nechaev, Alexander Grosberg
        Pages 125-128
        PDF
      7. PDF
      8. Wetting from Mixtures of Flexible Chains
        • U. Steiner, J. Klein, E. Eiser, A. Budkowski, L. Fetters
        Pages 133-136
        PDF

    2. Crystallography

      1. Twins in Diamond Films
        • Dan Shechtman
        Pages 137-140
        PDF

    3. Dynamics of Disordered Systems / Glasses

      1. The Crystallization of Amorphous Al:Ge Thin Films
        • Yossi Lereah, Guy Deutscher
        Pages 141-143
        PDF
      2. Grain Boundary Motion During Anisotropic Grain Growth
        • A. Brokman, A. J. Vilenkin
        Pages 145-149
        PDF
      3. PDF
      4. Dynamics of Interface Depinning in a Disordered Medium
        • Semjon Stepanow, Thomas Nattermann, Lei-Han Tang, Heiko Leschhorn
        Pages 155-158
        PDF

    4. Percolation, Diffusion and Fractons

      1. Hull of Percolation Clusters in Three Dimensions
        • Jean-Marc Debierre
        Pages 159-162
        PDF
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About this book

A humoristic view of the physics of soft matter, which nevertheless has a ring of truth to it, is that it is an ill-defined subject which deals with ill-condensed matter by ill-defined methods. Although, since the Nobel prize was awarded to Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, this subject can be no longer shrugged-away as "sludge physics" by the physics community, it is still not viewed universally as "main­ stream" physics. While, at first glance, this may be considered as another example of inertia, a case of the "establishment" against the "newcomer", the roots of this prejudice are much deeper and can be traced back to Roger Bacon's conception about the objectivity of science. All of us would agree with the weaker form of this idea which simply says that the final results of our work should be phrased in an observer-independent way and be communicable to anybody who made the effort to learn this language. There exists, however, a stronger form of this idea according to which the above criteria of "objectivity" and "communicability" apply also to the process of scientific inquiry. The fact that major progress in the physics of soft matter was made in apparent violation of this approach, by applying intuition to problems which appeared to defy rigorous analysis, may explain why many physicists feel somewhat ill-at-ease with this subject.
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Keywords

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Editors and Affiliations

  • Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel

    Y. Rabin

  • University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, USA

    R. Bruinsma

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Bibliographic Information

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Download book PDF

Buy it now

Softcover Book USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

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