Soft Condensed Matter Physics

Abstract

Soft condensed matter physics is the study of materials, such as fluids, liquid crystals, polymers, colloids, and emulsions, that are ``soft" to the touch. This article will review some properties, such as the dominance of entropy, that are unique to soft materials and some properties such as the interplay between broken-symmetry, dynamic mode structure, and topological defects that are common to all condensed matter systems but which are most easily studied in soft systems.Comment: 11 Pages, RevTeX, 7 postscript figures. To appear in Solid State Communication