Soft Matter: A Very Short Introduction

Soft matter science is concerned with soft materials such as polymers, colloids, liquid crystals, and foams, and has emerged as a rich interdisciplinary field over the last 30 years. Drawing on physics, chemistry, mathematics and engineering, soft matter links fundamental scientific ideas to everyday phenomena. One such example is 'polymers', encountered in plastic materials and melted cheese, which illustrate how 'sliminess' emerges from the flow and form of giant molecules.

This Very Short Introduction delves into the field of soft matter, looking beneath the appearances of matter into its inner structure. Tom McLeish shows how Brownian Motion - the random local motion of molecules that gives rise to 'heat' - is an underlying principle of soft matter. From hair conditioner to honey, he discusses how the shared physical properties and characteristics of these materials influence the way they behave, and their industrial applications.

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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.