Introduction

Abstract

You have accessMoreSectionsView PDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail Cite this article McLeish Tom C. B., Cates Mike E., Higgins Julia S. and Olmsted Peter D. 2003IntroductionPhil. Trans. R. Soc. A.361637–639http://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2002.1169SectionYou have accessIntroduction Tom C. B. McLeish Tom C. B. McLeish Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for more papers by this author , Mike E. Cates Mike E. Cates School of Physics, The University of Edinburgh, James Clerk Maxwell Building, The King's Buildings, Mayfield Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JZ, UK Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for more papers by this author , Julia S. Higgins Julia S. Higgins Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2AZ, UK Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for more papers by this author and Peter D. Olmsted Peter D. Olmsted Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for more papers by this author Tom C. B. McLeish Tom C. B. McLeish Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for more papers by this author , Mike E. Cates Mike E. Cates School of Physics, The University of Edinburgh, James Clerk Maxwell Building, The King's Buildings, Mayfield Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JZ, UK Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for more papers by this author , Julia S. Higgins Julia S. Higgins Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2AZ, UK Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for more papers by this author and Peter D. Olmsted Peter D. Olmsted Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for more papers by this author Published:28 February 2003https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2002.1169AbstractIt is an exciting thing to be involved in a young science. Though tracing a lineage from the polymer and colloid sciences of the last century, and the foundations of statistical mechanics of the century before, the newly self-aware – eld of ‘soft matter physics’ is clearly coming of age. Increasing interaction between research communities focused once exclusively on surfactants, liquid crystals, colloids or polymers has produced more than a comparison of notes and the sharing of techniques, important though such activity is. The signs of real new growth are everywhere: – rst-order questions abound, directed both at equilibrium (‘what is the phase diagram for polymer–colloid mixtures?’) and kinetics (‘how do polymer chains' mutual entanglements affect collective dynamics?’). Quite new phases of matter are coming to light, such as the counter–intuitive soft elasticity of nematic networks. Deceptively familiar materials, such as granular media, are revealing deep new puzzles. Furthermore, all this new science is much more than the application of old tools and methods to new applications. The new questions have rebounded on fundamental concepts of physics as familiar as electrostatics, and reshaped them. They have motivated the rapid development of less familiar, but no less basic, frameworks such as non–equilibrium statistical mechanics. Tentatively, progress in synthetic soft–matter systems might have something to say about the delicate complexity of biological matter. Next Article VIEW FULL TEXT DOWNLOAD PDF FiguresRelatedReferencesDetailsCited by Chakraborty S and Das S (2020) Relaxation in a phase-separating two-dimensional active matter system with alignment interaction, The Journal of Chemical Physics, 10.1063/5.0010043, 153:4, (044905), Online publication date: 28-Jul-2020. de Castro P and Sollich P (2019) Phase separation of mixtures after a second quench: composition heterogeneities, Soft Matter, 10.1039/C9SM01706B, 15:45, (9287-9299) Shahid T, Clasen C, Oosterlinck F and van Ruymbeke E (2019) Diluting Entangled Polymers Affects Transient Hardening but Not Their Steady Elongational Viscosity, Macromolecules, 10.1021/acs.macromol.8b02701, 52:6, (2521-2530), Online publication date: 26-Mar-2019. This Issue15 April 2003Volume 361Issue 1805Discussion Meeting Issue ‘Slow dynamics in soft matter’ organized by T. C. B. McLeish, M. E. Cates, J. S. Higgins and P. D. Olmsted Article InformationDOI:https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2002.1169Published by:Royal SocietyPrint ISSN:1364-503XOnline ISSN:1471-2962History: Published online28/02/2003Published in print15/04/2003 License: Citations and impact PDF Download