Related papers: Viewing Earth's surface as a soft matter landscape
Soils and sediments are soft, amorphous materials with complex microstructures and mechanical properties, that are also building blocks for industrial materials such as concrete. These Earth-mediated materials evolve under prolonged…
Soft materials consist of basic units that are significantly larger than an atom but much smaller than the overall dimensions of the sample. The label "soft condensed matter" emphasizes that the large basic building blocks of these…
Physicists face major challenges in modelling multi-scale phenomena that are observed in geophysical flows (e.g. in the Earth's oceans and atmosphere, or liquid planetary cores). In particular, complexities arise because geophysical fluids…
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…
No surface is perfectly planar at all scales. The notion of flatness of a surface therefore depends on the size of the probe used to observe it. As a consequence rough interfaces are abundant in nature. Here the old, but still active field…
Soft interfaces can mediate interactions between particles bound to them. The force transmitted through the surface geometry on a particle may be expressed as a closed line integral of the surface stress tensor around that particle. This…
Should we expect most habitable planets to share the Earth's marbled appearance? For a planetary surface to boast extensive areas of both land and water, a delicate balance must be struck between the volume of water it retains and the…
Global warming is affecting our Earth's environment. For example, sea level is rising with thermal expansion of water and fresh water input from the melting of continental ice sheets due to human-induced global warming. However, observing…
This article aims to introduce the broad field of soft active matter physics and its relevance to the life sciences in simple, accessible language. Although this area of research is relatively new, it has already demonstrated significant…
Materials that can be deformed by thermal stresses at room temperature are called soft materials. Colloidal suspensions comprising solid particles evenly distributed in a fluid phase (smoke, fog, ink and milk, for example),…
Inspired by presentations by the authors during a workshop organized at the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science (PCTS) in January 2022, we present a perspective on some of the outstanding questions related to the "physics of the ground…
One characteristic feature of soft matter systems is their strong response to external stimuli. As a consequence they are comparatively easily driven out of their ground state and out of equilibrium, which leads to many of their fascinating…
Water/solid interfaces are relevant to a broad range of physicochemical phenomena and technological processes such as corrosion, lubrication, heterogeneous catalysis and electrochemistry. Although many fields have contributed to rapid…
Soft materials such as colloidal suspensions, polymer solutions and liquid crystals are constituted by mesoscopic entities held together by weak forces. Their mechanical moduli are several orders of magnitude lower than those of atomic…
Earth's water, intrinsic oxidation state, and metal core density are fundamental chemical features of our planet. Studies of exoplanets provide a useful context for elucidating the source of these chemical traits. Planet formation and…
Soft and biological matter come in a variety of shapes and geometries. When soft surfaces that do not fit into each other due to a mismatch in Gaussian curvatures form an interface, beautiful geometry-induced patterns emerge. In this paper,…
This chapter provides an overview of the basic concepts foundational to atmospheric physics and chemistry. We discuss the retention of atmospheres against thermal evaporation and the global energy balance of planets. We present simple…
The regolith-covered surfaces of asteroids preserve records of geophysical processes that have occurred both at their surfaces and sometimes also in their interiors. As a result of the unique micro-gravity environment that these bodies…
Environmental science almost invariably proposes problems of extreme complexity, typically characterized by strongly nonlinear evolution dynamics. The systems under investigation have many degrees of freedom - which makes them complicated -…
Soft matter materials, such as polymers, membranes, proteins, are often electrically charged. This makes them water soluble, which is of great importance in technological application and a prerequisite for biological function. We discuss a…