Condensed matter physics is the field of physics that deals with the macroscopic and microscopic physical properties of matter. In particular it is concerned with the "condensed" phases that appear whenever the number of constituents in a system is large and the interactions between the constituents are strong; the most familiar examples of condensed phases are solids and liquids, which arise from the electromagnetic forces between atoms. Condensed matter physicists seek to understand the behavior of these phases by using physical laws. In particular, they include the laws of quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics. More exotic condensed phases include the superconducting phase exhibited by certain materials at low temperature, the ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic phases of spins on crystal lattices of atoms, the Bose–Einstein condensate found in ultracold atomic systems; the study of condensed matter physics involves measuring various material properties via experimental probes along with using methods of theoretical physics to develop mathematical models that help in understanding physical behavior.
The diversity of systems and phenomena available for study makes condensed matter physics the most active field of contemporary physics: one third of all American physicists self-identify as condensed matter physicists, the Division of Condensed Matter Physics is the largest division at the American Physical Society. The field overlaps with chemistry, materials science, nanotechnology, relates to atomic physics and biophysics; the theoretical physics of condensed matter shares important concepts and methods with that of particle physics and nuclear physics. A variety of topics in physics such as crystallography, elasticity, etc. were treated as distinct areas until the 1940s, when they were grouped together as solid state physics. Around the 1960s, the study of physical properties of liquids was added to this list, forming the basis for the new, related specialty of condensed matter physics. According to physicist Philip Warren Anderson, the term was coined by him and Volker Heine, when they changed the name of their group at the Cavendish Laboratories, Cambridge from Solid state theory to Theory of Condensed Matter in 1967, as they felt it did not exclude their interests in the study of liquids, nuclear matter, so on.
Although Anderson and Heine helped popularize the name "condensed matter", it had been present in Europe for some years, most prominently in the form of a journal published in English and German by Springer-Verlag titled Physics of Condensed Matter, launched in 1963. The funding environment and Cold War politics of the 1960s and 1970s were factors that lead some physicists to prefer the name "condensed matter physics", which emphasized the commonality of scientific problems encountered by physicists working on solids, liquids and other complex matter, over "solid state physics", associated with the industrial applications of metals and semiconductors; the Bell Telephone Laboratories was one of the first institutes to conduct a research program in condensed matter physics. References to "condensed" state can be traced to earlier sources. For example, in the introduction to his 1947 book Kinetic Theory of Liquids, Yakov Frenkel proposed that "The kinetic theory of liquids must accordingly be developed as a generalization and extension of the kinetic theory of solid bodies.
As a matter of fact, it would be more correct to unify them under the title of'condensed bodies'". One of the first studies of condensed states of matter was by English chemist Humphry Davy, in the first decades of the nineteenth century. Davy observed that of the forty chemical elements known at the time, twenty-six had metallic properties such as lustre and high electrical and thermal conductivity; this indicated that the atoms in John Dalton's atomic theory were not indivisible as Dalton claimed, but had inner structure. Davy further claimed that elements that were believed to be gases, such as nitrogen and hydrogen could be liquefied under the right conditions and would behave as metals. In 1823, Michael Faraday an assistant in Davy's lab liquefied chlorine and went on to liquefy all known gaseous elements, except for nitrogen and oxygen. Shortly after, in 1869, Irish chemist Thomas Andrews studied the phase transition from a liquid to a gas and coined the term critical point to describe the condition where a gas and a liquid were indistinguishable as phases, Dutch physicist Johannes van der Waals supplied the theoretical framework which allowed the prediction of critical behavior based on measurements at much higher temperatures.
By 1908, James Dewar and Heike Kamerlingh Onnes were able to liquefy hydrogen and newly discovered helium, respectively. Paul Drude in 1900 proposed the first theoretical model for a classical electron moving through a metallic solid. Drude's model described properties of metals in terms of a gas of free electrons, was the first microscopic model to explain empirical observations such as the Wiedemann–Franz law. However, despite the success of Drude's free electron model, it had one notable problem: it was unable to explain the electronic contribution to the specific heat and magnetic properties of metals, the temperature dependence of resistivity at low temperatures. In 1911, three years after helium was first liquefied, Onnes working at University of Leiden discovered superconductivity in mercury, when he observed the electrical resistivity of mercury to vanish at temperatures below a certain value; the phenomenon surprised the best theoretical physicists of the time, it remained unexplained for several decades.
Albert Einstein, in 1922, sa
The wine region of Ticino started producing wine in the Roman era, but only after 1906, with the introduction of Merlot, did it begin to produce quality wine. Geographically the wine region is located in the south of Switzerland, includes the canton Ticino and the neighbouring district of Moesa in the canton of the Grisons, both areas being Italian-speaking; the terroir varies from acid soil in the northern part to limestone in the southern part. The top quality wines of the region have the appellation del Ticino DOC or ticinese DOC, sometimes linked with a VITI label, the wines in the medium category use della Svizzera Italiana or nostrano; the first traces of grapes in Ticino are some pollens in sediments, starting from the neolithic. Notable diffusion of grapes by humans dates from the late Bronze Age to the entire Iron Age, the grapes were located near the lakes. At the beginning of the Roman era there was substantial cultivation of grapes, production of wine started in this period, as shown in a sculpture on a Roman tomb found in Stabio.
Until the 18th century, grapes were grown as a secondary product in extensive vineyards, from which light wines were produced, using a form of sharecropping. The wine was produced in some local varieties, they were red wines, but some were mixtures of red varieties with some white varieties. Because of new grapes diseases, the canton government decided to give a new direction to the wine industry: they instituted the cattedra itinerante to teach modern viticulture and winemaking methods, to substitute new high-value grapes for the local grapes. After a few years of studies and selections, in 1906 the canton decided to seed and recommended Merlot as the main variety of grapes for the canton. Another change was the operation of the railway of Gotthardbahn, which increased the commerce between Italy and the Swiss-German market; this commerce has created new wineries, which started with bottling of Italian wines, but switched the focus to production of local wines. In the Sopraceneri region of northern Ticino, the local variety Bondola still survives in some vineyards and is used to produce some wine.
In the late 20th century, the wineries looked for quality wines, because of new world wines, the demand of Merlot wine increased. Thus a golden era of wines of Ticino began. In the first years of the 2000s there was overproduction, so now the TicinoWine tries to find and target new markets for the local wine. In Ticino the grapes and wines are classified in three categories: These are the best wines and production is limited to 1.0 kg/m2 for red grapes and 1.2 kg/m2 for white grapes. The appellation is Denominazione di Origine Controllata Ticino DOC or Ticinese DOC and other geographic denominations; the wine can be made with Merlot, Pinot noir, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Gamaret, Garanoir and Ancellotta for red grapes. They have the denomination Vino da tavola bianco/rosso or nostrano svizzero or della svizzera italiana; the third denomination is Vino rosso or Vino bianco, without an explicit geographic denomination, with year and grape variety. The VITI label was introduced before the appellation.
Now only wines of first category are allowed to use the VITI label, but it is not used on top quality wines. Grapes are seeded in all districts of Ticino; the soil varies from acid soil in the northern part to limestone in the southern part, with some local geographical variation because of moraines, etc. The region is wet, but with few rainy days and many sunny days, so the vineyards are grassy, which limits erosion. Wine from Brusio in Val Poschiavo is considered to belong to the Italian wine region of Valtellina. History of Wine Italian wine Lombardia Christen, Alessandro. Introduzione del vitigno Merlot nel Canton Ticino: una cronaca. Merlot del Ticino, 1906–2006. Salvioni Edizioni. 2006. ISBN 88-7967-134-0. TicinoWine, the promotion body for Ticino quality wines Official cantonal site about agriculture and wine: rules for DOC plus various documentation and data
Charles Henry Plumb, Baron Plumb, is a British farmer who went into politics as a leader of the National Farmers Union. He became active in the Conservative Party and was elected as a Member of the European Parliament, he served as an MEP from 1979 to 1999, serving as President of the European Parliament from 1987 to 1989, the only Briton to hold the post. Henry Plumb's family had been in farming for several generations, his father farmed at Coleshill in Warwickshire, on which his son joined him in 1940. He took over running the farm in 1952; the farm ran to 300 acres and consisted of a dairy herd with 70 breeding sows and 100 acres of grain. After rising through the county branch, in 1965 Plumb was elected Vice-President of the National Farmers Union. Although only 40 years old he was considered for the Presidency, but had to settle for promotion to Deputy President in 1966. In the late 1960s Plumb was a member of the Northumberland Committee inquiring into the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, being the only working farmer on the committee.
Towards the end of the committee's deliberations, a report from political correspondent J. W. Murray in Farmer and Stockbreeder claimed that Plumb had single-handedly persuaded the committee to recommend prohibiting the import of carcass meat from countries where foot-and-mouth was endemic. In January 1970 the incumbent President of the NFU Gwilym Williams failed to get the 80% support necessary to be re-elected, Plumb was elected President of the NFU in his place. Plumb's term of office included British accession to the European Economic Community and its Common Agricultural Policy and Plumb negotiated for greater support for British agriculture. Plumb was, however, a strong supporter of British membership of the European Economic Community. Plumb was awarded a knighthood in the Queen's Birthday Honours list in 1973. Having joined the Conservative Party, Plumb was elected Member of the European Parliament for the Cotswolds seat in 1979 and remained in the European Parliament until 1999, being President of the European Parliament 1987-1989.
He was made a Life peer as Baron Plumb, of Coleshill in the County of Warwickshire on 6 April 1987. He retired from the House of Lords on 3 November 2017, he was Chancellor of Coventry University between 1995 and 2007 and a founder of leading EU lobbying law firm Alber & Geiger. In June 2012 the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and The Independent newspaper revealed how senior members of the House of Lords failed to disclose their business interests in a public inquiry; as of July 2012, Plumb's entry in the register of interests listed his only remunerated employment/profession as'farming', despite his involvement with the Brussels-based lobbying firm Alber and Geiger since 2007. According to The Independent, Plumb insisted "he did not need to register his involvement because he had never been in employment, paid or unpaid by the firm"; the Plumb Line: A Journey Through Agriculture and Politics by Henry Plumb. Greycoat Press. 2001