In this first sentence of his seminal book “The Physics of Liquid Crystals,” Pierre Gilles de Gennes has succinctly stated the appeal that liquid crystals have for all of us working in this field. The term “liquid crystal,” in fact, refers to a number of distinct states of matter that have structural order intermediate between that of conventional liquids and solids.
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P. G. de Gennes, The Physics of Liquid Crystals, Oxford U.P., London (1974);
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L. D. Landau, E. M. Lifshitz, Statistical Physics, 3rd ed., Pergamon, New York, (1980).
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© 1982 American Institute of Physics.
1982
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