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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.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
An Historical Perspective (Une Perspective Historique).- Review Papers.- Focal Conics Domains in Smectics.- On Polymer Brushes and Blobology: An Introduction.- The Adhesion Between Elastomers.- Dynamics of Late Stage Phase Separation in Polymer Blends.- Research Papers.- 1. Polymer Physics.- Swelling and Uniaxial Extension of Polymer Gels as Seen by Small Angle Neutron Scattering.- Silica-Poly (dimethsiloxane) Mixtures: An NMR Approach to the Investigation of Chain Adsorption Statistics.- Liquid Crystalline Polymers in Nematic Solvents: Extension and Confinement.- The Revealing of Heterogeneities by Free Linear Chains in a Network.- Non-Debye Screening in Polyelectrolyte Solutions.- Entropy of Knots and Statistics of Entangled Random Walks.- Polymers in a Random Environment and Molecular Quasi-Species.- Wetting from Mixtures of Flexible Chains.- 2. Crystallography.- Twins in Diamond Films.- 3. Dynamics of Disordered Systems / Glasses.- The Crystallization of Amorphous AL: GE Thin Films.- Grain Boundary Motion During Anisotropic Grain Growth.- Soft Atomic Potentials and Low-Frequency Raman Scattering in Glasses.- Dynamics of Interface Depinning in a Disordered Medium.- 4. Percolation, Diffusion and Fractons.- Hull of Percolation Clusters in Three Dimensions.- Dynamics of Diffusion and Invasion Fronts: On the Disconnection - Reconnection Exponents of Percolation Clusters.- Diffusion Reaction A+B ? C, with A and B Initially-Separated.- Nuclear Spin Relaxation in Aerogels and Porous Glasses.- Faraday Effect in the Multiple Scattering of Light: A Monte Carlo Simulation.- Fracton Dimensions for Elastic and Antiferromagnetic Percolating Networks.- Fractons in Computer and Laboratory Experiments.- 5. Surfactants and Liquid Crystals.- Some Remarks on the Elastic Propertiesof the Nematic and Smectic A Phases of Liquid Crystals.- Permeability of a Soap Film.- Vesicles of High Topological Genus.- Science and Society.- An Income-Distribution Demand-Shift Model of Inflation.- Neo-Darwinian Processes in the Evolution of Science and of Human Societies.
Zusammenfassung
Proceedings of a NATO ARW held in honor of Shlomo Alexander in Les Houches, France, February 16-25, 1993
