Answer: "Soft matter or soft condensed matter is a subfield of condensed matter comprising a variety of physical systems that are deformed or structurally altered by thermal or mechanical stress of the magnitude of thermal fluctuations."
Focuses on the properties of materials that are soft and deformable, such as gels, foams, and liquids.
Molecular Dynamics (MD): A method to simulate the motion of molecules and the interactions between them.
Brownian motion: The random movement of particles in a fluid due to collisions with molecules of the surrounding medium.
Phase transitions: Changes in the state of matter of a system due to temperature or pressure changes, such as melting, freezing, evaporation, boiling.
Polymer physics: The study of the physical properties of macromolecules, such as their behavior in solution, the structure of polymers, and polymerization processes.
Surface tension: The force that tends to minimize the surface area of a liquid, for example at the interface between two immiscible fluids or between a liquid and a solid.
Surfactants: Molecules that are amphiphilic, containing both hydrophilic and hydrophobic parts, and are therefore used to reduce interfacial tension and form micelles and other structures in solution.
Rheology: The study of the deformation and flow of materials in response to applied stresses, including solids, liquids, and gases.
Self-assembly: The process by which molecules come together to form larger structures or patterns spontaneously, driven by thermodynamic forces.
Nanoparticle physics: The study of the physical and chemical properties of nanoparticles, including their synthesis and assembly, and their interactions with biological systems.
Liquid crystals: Materials that exhibit a phase intermediate between that of a normal liquid and a solid crystal, characterized by long-range orientational order and short-range positional disorder.
Monte Carlo simulations: A method to generate random numbers and use them to simulate statistical processes in physical systems, such as the behavior of a gas or liquid.
Glasses and amorphous materials: Materials that lack long-range order in their atomic structure, and exhibit unusual physical properties.
Colloidal physics: The study of the physical properties of particles suspended in a liquid or gas, including their structure and behavior as a function of concentration, size, and shape.
Electrorheology: The study of the change in the rheological properties of a material due to the application of an electric field.
Fractals: Geometric structures that exhibit self-similarity at different scales, and are used to model complex phenomena in soft matter physics, such as diffusion-limited aggregation and percolation.
Polymers: Study of macromolecules that have a long-chain structure, such as plastics, rubbers, and proteins, that exhibit unique physical properties.
Colloids: Study of small particles, usually between 1 nanometer and 1 micrometer in size, suspended in a liquid medium, such as milk, blood, and ink.
Gels: Study of soft materials consisting of a cross-linked network of polymers or other types of molecules, that have both liquid and solid-like properties, like gelatin and some food products.
Liquid crystals: Study of materials that exhibit a state of matter between a liquid and a solid, in which the molecules arrange themselves in ordered patterns, such as those found in LCD screens.
Surfactants: Study of compounds that lower the surface tension between two substances, such as soap and detergents.
Emulsions: Study of a mixture of two immiscible liquids, such as oil and water, that forms a stable suspension through the addition of a surfactant.
Foams: Study of materials consisting of tiny bubbles dispersed within a liquid or solid medium, like whipped cream, egg white, and Styrofoam.
Membranes: Study of thin films composed of polymers or other materials that selectively allow the transport of certain molecules or ions, like in artificial organs and water filtration.
Soft glasses: Study of materials that behave as amorphous solids at low temperatures but can flow like a liquid at higher temperatures, such as metallic glasses.
Rheology: Study of the deformation and flow of soft materials under external forces, such as viscosity and viscoelasticity.
Answer: "Soft materials include liquids, colloids, polymers, foams, gels, granular materials, liquid crystals, flesh, and a number of biomaterials."
Answer: "These materials share an important common feature in that predominant physical behaviors occur at an energy scale comparable with room temperature thermal energy (of order of kT), and that entropy is considered the dominant factor."
Answer: "Entropy is considered the dominant factor."
Answer: "At these temperatures, quantum aspects are generally unimportant."
Answer: "Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, who has been called the 'founding father of soft matter,' received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1991 for discovering that methods developed for studying order phenomena in simple systems can be generalized to the more complex cases found in soft matter."
Answer: "Pierre-Gilles de Gennes discovered that methods developed for studying order phenomena in simple systems can be generalized to the more complex cases found in soft matter, in particular, to the behaviors of liquid crystals and polymers."
Answer: "When soft materials interact favorably with surfaces, they become squashed without an external compressive force."
Answer: "Predominant physical behaviors occur at an energy scale comparable with room temperature thermal energy (of order of kT)."
Answer: "Examples of soft materials that are deformed or structurally altered by thermal or mechanical stress of the magnitude of thermal fluctuations."
Answer: "Soft materials are deformed or structurally altered by thermal or mechanical stress of the magnitude of thermal fluctuations."
Answer: "At these temperatures, quantum aspects are generally unimportant."
Answer: "Soft matter comprises a variety of physical systems that are deformed or structurally altered by thermal or mechanical stress."
Answer: "Entropy is considered the dominant factor."
Answer: "Soft materials include liquids, colloids, polymers, foams, gels, granular materials, liquid crystals, flesh, and a number of biomaterials."
Answer: "Pierre-Gilles de Gennes studied order phenomena in simple systems and generalized them to the more complex cases found in soft matter, particularly regarding the behaviors of liquid crystals and polymers."
Answer: "When soft materials interact favorably with surfaces, they become squashed without an external compressive force."
Answer: "Pierre-Gilles de Gennes received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1991 for discovering that methods developed for studying order phenomena in simple systems can be generalized to the more complex cases found in soft matter."
Answer: "Soft materials include flesh and a number of biomaterials."
Answer: "Predominant physical behaviors occur at an energy scale comparable with room temperature thermal energy (of order of kT)."