Talk:Condensed matter physics

Solid State Physics vs. Condensed matter physics
Alison Chaiken 08:32, 20 November 2005 (UTC): I don't find "solid state physics" any more or less useful than "condensed matter physics" but I believe that the battle between them is over and SSP has lost. I don't know about the rest of you, but I call my work "condensed matter physics" even though 90% of it can be found in Ashcroft and Mermin. The SSP and CMP categories and articles are essentially duplications and are inevitably sources of confusion. I almost don't care which article or category we keep as long as there is only one. However, I do think that "solid state physics" is beginning to fall into disuse.


 * Since both of these articles are basically just signposts to other articles, I see no reason not to merge them. (But see my opposite view on the proposed Category merger). If actual text were to be written specific to the solid-state, then the articles could always be split apart again. -- The Photon 01:50, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

One view against the merge
Solid State Physics is also useful to Electrical Engineers as a basis for integrated circuits. The body of work developed in the last 50 years is still of interest to EE's. But a student enrolling in Condensed Matter Physics might then be treated to BEC's etc to the neglect of the important material from the last half-century. It is useful to retain the distinction in the articles as well. --Ancheta Wis 13:47, 27 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Please note that I don't want the content of the solid state physics article to be removed; I just want it to be incorporated into the condensed-matter article.    "Solid state physics" is a term that is going out of usage, at least in the United States.    What I would propose is that the solid-state article be a simple redirect to the condensed-matter article.    No one denies that the content of both articles is useful; there's just no need for both. -- Alison Chaiken 04:15, 28 November 2005 (UTC)


 * At the risk of presenting a view from outside the U.S., this is the first I've heard of SSP falling out of use as a term. I did graduate four years agao and maybe changes are underway in the university course titles, but working in the electronics industry SSP is still the term used here in the UK 10:17, 11 January 2006 (Zulu time, and indeed for all practical purposes here probably GMT and UTC as well)

I would prefer the articles not to be merged. The term Solid State Physics does not seem to be going out of use, here in the UK at least. I am a university student, and the term SSP is used pretty much all the time, whereas 'condensed matter physics' has never been mentioned. This could cause a lot of confusion. Just have a link to CMP on the solid state page, keep them seperate to make it easier on us students.

Something to note, is that the University courses (Engineering courses in the US, the poster above said general physics classes in the UK) might still use the term 'Solid State Physics' to describe the domain, but no journals, conferences or proceedings use that term. Everyone in the paper publishing area uses Condensed Matter Physics as the descriptive term.

For the merge, sort of...
As far as I'm concerned "condensed matter" is just an outdated term for "Solid State Physics". However, I feel that to be fair to electrical engineers and the like it should all be grouped into "Materials Science/Materials Engineering".


 * The situation is in fact the opposite. "Condensed Matter Physics" is nowadays applied to what was historically named "Solid State Physics." The reason is simple: physicists started studying "solids" with their new theory of quantum physics, to discover that the actual theory is applicable to a broader range of "densities" including liquids, and gases. On the application and engineering side "solid state" has continued becasue of the direction of flow of terminology and standardization procedures. On your last point, I consider it a bad idea to group "condensed matter physics" or "solid state physics" with "material science" as they refer to two different disciplines of science, with very different techniques, expertise and even goals. bhs 21:45, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

merging
I have a suggestion to resolve most merging problems with better structuring articles within wikipedia. I call it "str-art". I think it could be applied to this merging at first, as a good example of how it could work, since there's a small structure around physics articles already, but nothing too strong.

I vote for merging, but in a different way, which would be lately completely different from the conventional way of merging done in wikipedia nowadays.

--caue 00:18, 16 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I read your suggestions at str-art and get the gist that you think that duplicate articles arise because of poor overall organization, and that you think we should reorganize the physics articles instead of patching on a case-by-case basis.    I'm not sure what kind of organization you envision though.   Can you point to an example of some content that is organized in the way that you suggest?   Do you want to discuss this at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Physics?  Alison Chaiken 05:37, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Merge. I have listed this on Proposed_mergers to see if a conclusion can be reached. Rex the first  talk 23:57, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

May I please request that the SSP article be not merged with the CMP. I am an engineering student in UK in my first year but I never heard of CMP till I visited the lovely wiki, SSP is on the other hand very well known to me. Please don't merge them unless wiki has run out of space for the extra article in which case SSP stays and out goes CMP. Robert 21:31, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I am a UK maths an physics student and I think that the two article overlap and having all the links in one place would help. I understand that people have heard of one or the other but both articles are a collection of links and mean very similar (if not the same thing) and in merging we could mention both CM and SSP. We would just be merging links so there would be one article unless anyone thinks that there is content in one that couldn't be in another.Rex the first talk 00:11, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I feel the terms have slightly different meanings. Solid State Physics is exactly that, condensed matter includes solid state plus other bits. Oxford, Cambridge, MIT, Princeton all have "Condensed Matter" research groups in their physics departments, but not "solid state" groups. Having said that, stanford has a "solid state and photonics lab", presumably because they look at specifically solid state. Theoretical groups seem to be condensed matter groups, but maybe engineering departments, and some experimental groups are solid state. LeBofSportif 17:31, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Merge. Lots of editors here voting against merging have made great points for merging--namely that the two topics are highly related even if not the exact same thing. Explaining what they both are and their relationship is a great encyclopedia article that could educate readers like Robert. Having separate articles for highly related topics leads to increased maintance, potential conflicts, lower editor counts on each article, and a lower quality encyclopedia overall. Pdbailey (talk) 03:59, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Keep Both, but better organize
The deletion of either would be a mistake. Being a physicist I know the hierarchy of the physics web of subjects. Condensed Matter deals with all other material issues that Solid State doesn’t, such as plasmas and exotic material. Solid State is not a subset of Material Science, rater it would be more accurate to state that Material Science falls under the order of Condensed Matter as does Solid State. Both topics should be kept but the differences between Condensed Matter and Solid State should be outlined in their respective articles. One possible way to organize this would to draw up a web of the different physic super subjects and their minor topics in the wiki fashion. You might want to look at [Hyperphysics] for ideas (and yes Hyperphysics is a creditable website).--Michael.j.sykora 17:16, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


 * As a non-physicist, I was hoping for more perspective on that hierarchy of subjects. I.e., I wanted to get some sense of what CM physics doesn't include.  Of course a grand list would be unwieldy and off-topic, but some examples to illuminate the boundary a bit would be helpful.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sbump (talk • contribs) 19:57, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Topics in condensed matter physics as subheadings
I think the highest level of points in the "Topics in condensed matter physics" should be made into subheadings. Phases, Crystalline Solids, Non-crystalline solids, Soft matter, Nanotechnology is the things I am talking about. This will make it easier to look at and easier to navigate. Also then, a small blurb about the section can be included so that people can figure out what the basics of each field are without navigating away. What does everyone think about this? If no one opposes I will try to change these things in a couple of days --DFRussia 08:30, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Reworking of introduction, Sep 20, 2009
The following are the main changes: Stevvers (talk) 14:27, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Reordered the three examples of "exotic" condensed phases: the BEC in atomic systems is certainly interesting, but it seems more sensible to me to put the two examples that are mainstream CM physics first, before the new developments.
 * 2) The final sentence of the first paragraph seems entirely out of place, and also wrong ("large and strong"?), and has been removed.
 * 3) Added a sentence at the start of the second paragraph saying how we study these condensed phases.
 * 4) We need a citation for the statistic about one third of physicists doing CM.
 * 5) Removed "engineering" from the list of fields with significant overlap. All of physics has significant overlap with engineering, and it's only very specific areas of engineering (such as nanotechnology and materials science) that CM really overlaps with. (Plus this makes the list three items long.) Added references to biophysics and atomic physics.
 * 6) Added a remark about theoretical CM having connections with other areas of theoretical physics, which I think is an important point, given the number of concepts that are shared.
 * 7) Collected all the material about the name change together in the third paragraph.
 * 8) We need a citation for the claim about why the field was renamed. I have changed the name of the Cambridge CMT group to its current name. Does anyone know what it was actually called by Anderson and Heine?
 * 9) Reworded the final couple of sentences. In particular, referring to the two isotopes of helium and pairing in He-3 seems far too much detail for this overview article. I have also removed the term "quantum fluid", since a Fermi liquid is basically a (renormalized) classical phase.

Electromagnetic Forces
A sentence in the lead section says "The most familiar condensed phases are solids and liquids, which arise from electromagnetic binding forces," but there is no follow-up to this anywhere in the article. What is the nature of these EM forces? The Electromagnetism article doesn't mention liquids or solids, so that link is not much help. We need to expand on this sentence.TSchwenn (talk) 20:36, 1 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I eventually plan to add a section on band theory, which should hopefully address that. Also, thanks for your comments and work on the lead, let me know if you find other issues. Best, S Pat   talk 20:49, 1 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Band theory is relevant to the article as a whole, as it explains the EM properties of solids, but can it account for the EM forces that bind a solid together? And what about liquids? The article should answer the question: "How do EM forces keep solids and liquids condensed?" --TSchwenn (talk) 23:22, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

expert attention needed to Rydberg matter
(the following was moved from GA review talk page to here by Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 22:31, 30 May 2013 (UTC))

As discussed on its talk page, the Rydberg matter article has significant problems and seems to be promoting fringe science. However, condensed matter isn't my field. It would be great if a wikipedian with knowledge of condensed matter physics could step in and try to straighten things out there. My impression is that Rydberg matter should simply be deleted.--207.233.87.87 (talk) 20:59, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Oops, thanks, Stigmatella aurantiaca, for moving this.--75.83.76.23 (talk) 14:51, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

In preparation for a possible future FAC...
I'm thinking of taking the next big step for this article over the coming few weeks (months?). One of the points mentioned by the GA reviewer was the lack of comprehensiveness in the "Theory" and "Experiment" sections. To begin to address this, it'd be great if people could just enumerate a list of things that this article ought to have but currently does not - I'll begin: Of course, if you have any other suggestions, feel free to chime in! Thanks for your time S Pat   talk 05:30, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES)
 * Quantum spin liquids

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Circular definition
Condensed matter physics is defined in terms of condensed. I created a link to Condensation, but that does not help much. The link to Phase (matter) does not help much either. The first sentence of the article does not tell a reader of ordinary intelligence what is meant by Condensed matter.

I think the defining property of condensed matter is a strong attraction among particles. I propose changing the first sentence to agree with the American Heritage Dictionary, "atoms or particles adhere to each other."  Comfr (talk) 16:16, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

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Proposal -- switch to "state of matter" rather than "phase"
This article is framed as talking about "phases" of matter, which I believe is inaccurate, or rather, is not sufficiently accurate.

I propose reframing the article in terms of "states", which would make things a lot clearer throughout. Specifically, things like "liquid" and "solid" are terms that refer to states of matter; phases of matter will have a state, but in addition possess properties specific to the matter under consideration. For example, liquid water and liquid oil share a state, but they are different phases.

I admit that the distinction between "phase" and "state" is a new one for me; I had not been aware of a difference. Colloquially it seems that they are used interchangeably, and terms like "phase boundary" exist and are commonly used, even though that actually represents a boundary between states, because what is usually produced is an immiscible mixture of some sort. If there are condensed-matter or solid-state physicists out there I'd appreciate the feedback.

This would also include organizing the list of states of matter table to include "condensed" vs. "dissociated" states of matter, with condensed pointing here and dissociated blank for the moment (aerodynamics is doesn't seem right). Anyway, the taxonomies here can be argued endlessly, but I think moving to states is a natural win.

I'll probably pull the trigger on this in a couple of days if there is no significant negative feedback; we can always revert if the change is seen as for the worse.

Lauciusa (talk) 15:52, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

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Prosaic films
Suggestion to delete paragraphs RDR (talk) 18:26, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

The last two paragraphs of the Modern Many-Body Physics section need editing. The paragraph mentioning

"prosaic films" [clarification needed] of various gases (?!?) and spontelectrics

is dubious and it certainly does not refer to the same level of well established important results as the rest of the page.

Although band topology is undoubtedly an important topic today, the last paragraph presents this subject in an inadequate fashion.

Also the mention of Néel's antiferromagnetism (an important result) just before magnetic storage, as an application, is weird. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Roberto DR (talk • contribs) 18:35, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Partially done. What is weird about the Néel discovery?--ReyHahn (talk) 10:51, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Solid state physics
There exist both this page on condensed matter physics (CMP) and one on solid state physics (SSP). The term CMP was proposed by PW Anderson, to include also fluids (and superfluids). So the two terms are not strictly coincident. But the present developing Wikipedia pages are mostly coincident.

A concerted effort would be most welcome. For instance the SSP page could say that the term has been the name of a prominent field of physics until the '80s, when the more general term of CMP took over. A shrinked version of SSP could remain, with the present content restricted to a minimum and a clear redirection, for more details to this CMP page.

I am not a Wikipedia Editor. This purpose, if agreed upon, could be explicitly written out in a temporary top warning box in both pages. I added a similar note in the SSP talk. RDR (talk) 14:45, 2 January 2024 (UTC)


 * I do not understand the issue. Solid state physics article clearly discusses the history and indicates in the lead that it is the largest branch of condensed matter physics.. SSP discusses just electronic and crystalline properties while condensed matter physics discusses much more than that. The only overlap is that both articles discuss the origin of the terminology.--ReyHahn (talk) 14:57, 2 January 2024 (UTC)