Category talk:Condensed matter physics

Alison Chaiken 00:34, 23 September 2005 (UTC): See my comment at Category_talk:Solid_state_physics. I don't care whether a unified category is called "Solid State Physics" or "Condensed Matter Physics" but there should only be one category!

Merged in from Category_talk:Solid_state_physics;

Alison Chaiken 00:32, 23 September 2005 (UTC): It's too bad that condensed-matter physics and solid-state physics are separate categories. They need to be unified! Clearly this disorganization of the Wikipedia is a reflection of the disagreement about (or indifference to) terminology in the physics community, but that doesn't mean that it should be allowed to persist.

• I would think that many of the topics related to semiconductors (for example) are specific to the solid state, and don't generalize to liquids, gasses or other phases. For example, doping (semiconductor), valence band, conduction band, band gap, crystal structure, crystallography, photonic crystal. Therefore, the "Solid state physics" category should be retained as a subcategory in "Condensed matter physics". On the other hand some of the articles are probably miscategorized (i.e. metal) and ought to be moved up the ladder to "Condensed matter physics". If you like, you can think of solid-state physics as the subset that engineers can understand.-- The Photon 01:38, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I certainly see your point about SSP being a subcategory of CMP. My point is that most physicists, at least in the US, will expect to see a CMP category, not a SSP category. When I first started reading the WP, I thought that there were far fewer SSP/CMP articles than there actually are because I didn't realize initially that both categories existed. At the very least, all articles listed under SSP should be listed under CMP too, as otherwise readers may have trouble finding them. The idea floating around WP that SSP is about solids and that CMP is about liquids is incorrect; in fact CMP includes physics of solids, which is why the American Physical Society at least no longer recognizes SSP as an independent field. -- Alison Chaiken 04:22, 28 November 2005 (UTC)