Condensed concepts

There are many statements that are attributed to famous scientists that turn out to be widely wrong. A decade ago I wrote about one from Brian Pippard predicting the end of condensed matter physics in the 1960s. However, just like Einstein quotes, it turns out that many of these statements in the popular folklore are often wrongly attributed. For example, according to the Wikipedia entry on Lord Kelvin , The statement "There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement" has been widely misattributed to Kelvin since the 1980s, either without citation or stating that it was made in an address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1900). [86]   There is no evidence that Kelvin said this , [87] [88]  and the quote is instead a paraphrase of  Albert A. Michelson , who in 1894 stated: "… it seems probable that most of the grand underlying principles have been firmly established … An eminent physicist

I have just rewritten chapter 1 of Condensed Matter Physics: A Very Short Introduction.  I obtained very helpful feedback on my first version from a freelance editor. This has given me fresh eyes for the whole manuscript, which I am now rewriting. She suggested moving some strong material from later chapters into the first chapter, particularly the fact that CMP is all about emergence. I have also benefited from other readers and blog commenters. For example, David Sholl's asked about how CMP is different from other approaches to materials science. Here is the new version.   I welcome comments. But, again you are probably not my intended audience. Rather, it is your family, undergraduates, or colleagues in biology or social sciences.

 Some progress is being made in understanding the structure and dynamics of the SARS-CoV-2 virions (virus particles) that are responsible for the pandemic. A nice starting point for the non-expert is a recent article in The New York Times. A fundamental question is what is the structure and symmetry of the virion? In particular, does it have the icosahedral symmetry possessed by many virions, as discussed in a talk I gave earlier this year and in a recent review (with lots of nice pictures). As far as I am aware, there are still no definitive results on the overall structure and symmetry.  This preprint has some really nice images and videos such as the video below.  SARS-CoV-2 structure and replication characterized by  in situ   cryo-electron tomography   View ORCID Profile Steffen   Klein ,    View ORCID Profile Mirko   Cortese ,    View ORCID Profile Sophie L.   Winter ,    View ORCID Profile Moritz   Wachsmuth-Melm ,    View ORCID Profile Christopher J.   Neufeldt ,  Berati   Cer