The More We Are Together

Abstract

Some of the most fascinating and spectacular events in Nature arise when the matter changes state. Soft matter like lipid bilayers and membranes have their share of these phenomena. Lets us, however, start with a simple and well-known example, water. Water in the form of ice melts upon heating into liquid water which upon further heating turns into vapor. In this case the matter water has three states, or so-called phases, a solid (ice), a liquid (water), and a gas (water vapor). Although all states are made of the same type of simple H$_2$O molecules, the three phases appear to the naked eye as very different. They also turn out to have very different materials properties upon closer investigation.