When a new state of a well‐known substance is found, enthusiasm spreads as theorists try to predict its properties and experimenters to verify its existence. This excitement has certainly followed the discovery of a condensed metallic phase in germanium and silicon. The apparent confirmation of conducting electron‐hole “droplets” (about 1 micron in size) at temperatures of a few Kelvin is particularly good news for manybody theory because germanium and silicon are probably the best studied of all semiconductors and offer clean, simple systems for testing ideas.

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