What makes this book a good reference is that the individual chapters are usually self contained - requiring some but not excessive familiarity with chapters that have gone before. This allows the reader to gain insight into the various aspects of the subject one at a time as needed.

As a text, this book is written so as to be accessable to the student encountering the subject matter for the first time but assumes a reasonable familiarity with thermodynamics, statistical mechanics and quantum mechanics. A strong course in physical chemistry would certainly provide sufficient background.

Overall, this is a fine book for those who wish to pursue the various topics in condensed matter physics thoughtfully and in earnest.


Best basic condensed matter textbook   January 1, 2002
8 out of 10 found this review helpful

It is not only a "soft Condensed Matter" book. This book has every basic (or kinda advanced) ideas of condensed matter physics. And there is almost no prerequisite for this book --- a reader needn't even know any solid state physics before he reads this book. The text is well written and easy to read.
--- These are all the features of a perfect textbook.


incorrectly labelled a "soft matter" book   June 28, 2006
RPG (Timbuktu)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

This is simply a modern presentation of condensed matter physics, and thus includes some soft matter examples, but it is not in any sense a "soft matter book".

To those still mired in traditional solid state physics, where electronic properties are topics 1 through 987 and understanding how a semiconductor works is still a primary goal, it may appear that this is a strange book. Indeed it is: it is a condensed matter text rather than a solid state text.

Take a look at your Ashcroft and Mermin flyleaf some time---it is over 30 years old. What have you learned since then? What have your students learned? Do they really get turned on by LAPW and FLAPW? Are you sure? This book is a good place to start bringing yourself, and your students, up to date.


Exhaustive treatment of soft matter physics!   March 7, 2004
Vivek Sharma (Cambridge / Boston, MA, USA)
6 out of 8 found this review helpful

Given my training as engineer in undergraduate and as polymer scientist in my MS, I find this book a challenging endevour. It presupposes knowledge of quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics, and is written in a style most beneficial for Physics graduate students. Nonetheless, since every serious student in material science and polymer physics must indeed become comfortable with soft matter physics, this book is a delightful introduction. The book by RAL Jones can provide a quick introduction to phenomenon and principles encountered in the book. But to master the trade, to become comfortable with notation used in papers, to understand the math, to make yourself a soft matter physicist, this book provides matter, paradigm and principles in comprehensive manner.

Specifically book is essential reading for people studying physics of crystals, liquid crystals, amorphous materials, polymers and magnetically ordered systems. It provides detailed introduction to symmetry, phase transitions, field theories, scattering and correlation functions, and generalized elasticity and hydrodynamics. Each chapter and topic can be appreaciated by additional reading from a textbook each in Statistical Mechanics (Pathria), Electrodynamics (Slater and Frank), Quantum Mechanics, liquid crystals (chandrashekar or de gennes, polymers (doi, de gennes) and scattering (neutron-higgins, light-pecora). Like potential readers, I am myself a student, just starting on this daunting but worthwhile study of condensed matter.


Wonderful and deep approach to soft condensed matter physics   April 1, 2007
TOE (Paris, France)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

This textbook's main originality is its unusual mixture of latest experimental facts and observations in soft condensed matter with deep theoretical concepts and tools.
Exactly solved models of statistical physics pervades the text which also contains a good discussion on real-space renormalization methods and field-theoretical approaches to condensed matter problems.
The chapter on topological defects and excitations is particularly welcomed.
May not be particularly suited for self-study as some results are not always carefully derived and the exercises can prove quite hard to solve.
A prior exposure to phase transition phenomena is recommended.