Lattice vibrations

If you believe in atoms, and believe that atoms bind themselves together to form solids, and are willing to grant that these binding forces are not so strong but that the atoms may vibrate one against the other, then you have a mechanism that can be used to explain many of the properties of solids. In fact this mechanism is very basic to our description of the solid state. Without these atomic oscillations, or lattice vibrations, we would be hard put to explain, say, normal electrical resistance; yet without this mechanism, apparently superconductivity also would be virtually impossible. Luckily, though, many of the things of interest in solid‐state physics can be decoupled for the purpose of significant study from the details of the vibrating lattice, although few explanations, indeed, are offered without acknowledging the existence of this large reservoir of lattice interactions. This basic importance of the mechanism leads to an extremely rich historical background on the subject; the number of brilliant, and modest, lights in physics illuminating the theory of these vibrations being great, and growing still.

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