What Is Soft Matter

Another helpful concept that can help us to understand and characterize soft matter is linked to thermal energy and intermolecular interactions. Soft materials are held together by weak intermolecular interactions and have a structure that can be significantly affected by energies close to k T, where kg is the Boltzmann constant (1.38 x 10 m kg/s K), and T is the materials temperature measured in kelvin. At room temperature, kgT has a value of about 26 meV, which is much smaller than the energies that hold atoms together in a crystalline solid. Therefore, one of the most important characteristics of a soft material is that its structure can be easily altered at relatively low temperatures. 

There are several physical concepts that will be important in your understanding of the material in this book  

FIGURE 1.1 Examples of some of the different soft materials explored in this book. 

As these ideas are so important and commonly encountered in all forms of soft matter science, we review them throughout this chapter. 

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