The long-standing unsolved problem of glass transition has recently been drawn attention tothe research community and general public by an article published in the New York Times, entitled “The Nature of Glass Remains Anything but Clear”. The article mainly samples current and widely different views of some theoreticians, which have led to the conclusion that the situation is anything but clear. We show this pessimistic conclusion is unwarranted because results from recent experimental investigations have not been considered. These results show clearly the importance of the effects of many-body relaxation (or its surrogate, the degree of departure from linear exponential time dependence) and the relation between the structural α-relaxation with a special secondary relaxation. Both aspects have not been taken into account by most theories. If taken into consideration, significance progress can be expected.
The Nature of Glass: somethings are clear
CAPACCIOLI, SIMONE;
2010-01-01
Abstract
The long-standing unsolved problem of glass transition has recently been drawn attention tothe research community and general public by an article published in the New York Times, entitled “The Nature of Glass Remains Anything but Clear”. The article mainly samples current and widely different views of some theoreticians, which have led to the conclusion that the situation is anything but clear. We show this pessimistic conclusion is unwarranted because results from recent experimental investigations have not been considered. These results show clearly the importance of the effects of many-body relaxation (or its surrogate, the degree of departure from linear exponential time dependence) and the relation between the structural α-relaxation with a special secondary relaxation. Both aspects have not been taken into account by most theories. If taken into consideration, significance progress can be expected.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
