"More and Different"
Professor Philip W. Anderson
Q: What was your moti-vation for publishing this book?
A: Aside from sheer egotism, I felt guilty that I had never tried to write the book which I should have, explaining for the layman what a wonderful and exciting field con-densed matter physics is, in the same way that Brian Greene or Stephen Hawking have done for particle physics and cosmology, Henry Petroski for engineering, — or Primo Levi for chemistry. Bob Laughlin tried, bravely, but I think the field is so much a mixture of the abstract and deep with simple practicality that it may be impossible to do so. In any case, this is what I could do.
Q: The name of the field “Condensed Matter Physics” was apparently coined by you and Volker Heine in 1967. How did it come about?
A: Very simply, we wanted to name this new entity when I joined Volker at the Cavendish Laboratory in 1967, and solid state physics was too restrictive as we were interested in liquids, glass, nuclear matter and the like; the term became even more appropriate when Sam Edwards joined us in 1974.
Q: You have worked on many interesting topics in condensed matter physics. Which topics will set the trends in research for the next decade?
A: Trends in research are very hard to predict — luck and fashion play a big role. I can tell you very fashionable subjects which are almost sure to disappear — two examples are the attempted use of gravitational analogies in condensed matter, and the idea of the “electron nematic.” As to which of the breakthroughs today that are going to fructify is anyone’s guess. If I had to guess I would opt for low-temperature properties of the quantum solid; complex, strong-interacting quantum fluids (spin liquids, “unitary” interacting fluids, vortex fluids); and projective quantum systems. But these are in my restricted field and I see the true expansion coming in biophysics and neuroscience. “Agenthood,” free will and consciousness need to be understood.
2011 marks the 30th Anniversary for World Scientific, and to commemorate the occasion, an honorary banquet was held at the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore on August 13th. Over 500 people came to toast the achievement including former Singapore Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. George Yeo and Chinese Ambassador to Singapore Mr. Wei Wei. Authors, distributors, suppliers, staff members and friends of the company were also in attendance to celebrate.
As the second speaker of the evening, Chairman Dr. K.K. Phua mentioned the mission to start World Scientific was very clear. Thirty years ago there were no international publishers headquartered in Asia. A physicist at heart, Chairman Phua focused his energy on courting some of the top names in the field to publish with the fledgling company, and to this day, he is actively involved in the acquisition of new projects. Laying out the goals for growth over the next five years, he mentioned the company aims to double the number of titles published each year to 800, and increase the number of journals offered from 150 to 250. In order to achieve these goals, the company’s manpower will need to be increased, particularly in India and China. He finished by saying, “After 30 years of operation, we managed to set up World Scientific with a strong re-putation. This is due to the support from our staff, scientists and friends from all over the world.”
