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Soft Matter: A Very Short Introduction

Tom McLeish

October 2020

ISBN: 9780198807131

176 pages
Paperback
174x111mm

Very Short Introductions

Price: £8.99

Tom McLeish delves into the growing field of soft matter - the study of materials such as polymers, colloids, liquid crystals, and foams. Looking beneath their appearance to their inner structure, he discusses their shared physical properties, the principle of Brownian Motion that underlies all soft matter, and the applications of these materials.

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Description

Tom McLeish delves into the growing field of soft matter - the study of materials such as polymers, colloids, liquid crystals, and foams. Looking beneath their appearance to their inner structure, he discusses their shared physical properties, the principle of Brownian Motion that underlies all soft matter, and the applications of these materials.

  • Introduces the still relatively young field of soft matter - the study of materials such as polymers, colloids, liquid crystals, and foams
  • Examines the inner structure of these forms of matter and the shared physical properties and behaviours that emerge from that structure
  • Shows how the field of soft matter brings together physics, chemistry, engineering, and mathematics
  • Highlights the important industrial applications of soft matter
  • Part of the Very Short Introductions series - over ten million copies sold worldwide

About the Author(s)

Tom McLeish, FRS, Professor of Natural Philosophy, University of York

Tom McLeish FRS is Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of York. His research has contributed to the new fields of 'soft matter physics' and 'biological physics', working with chemists, engineers, and biologists to connect molecular structure with emergent properties. His research interests also include the framing of science, society, and science policy, and is the author of Faith and Wisdom in Science (OUP, 2014). He was Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research at Durham University from 2008-2014, and is both the current chair of the Royal Society's Education Committee and a trustee of the John Templeton Foundation. He was the first winner of the Institute of Physics Edwards Prize (2017) for his work on soft matter.

Table of Contents

    1:Introduction: the science of softness
    2:Milkiness and inkiness: the crowding of the colloids
    3:Sliminess and stickiness: the march of the macromolecules
    4:Soapiness: the synchrony of self-assembly
    5:Pearliness: the light-play of liquid crystals
    6:Towards life: active soft matter
    Further reading
    Index

Reviews

"What comes across is McLeish's passion for his topic, his wonder at how nature creates rhymes and variations in the poetry of the physical world, and his joy in the mysteries and delights to be found in the apparently mundane." - Phil Ball, Los Angeles Review of Books

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