Twenty years of physics: Solid state

THE LAST TWO DECADES may well have been the era of solid‐state physics. Certainly it has growed and growed; absolutely, of course, like all science and all physics, but also relatively to other fields. I guess it now occupies almost 40% of the family bed, instead of about 15% at the end of World War II. With its leading American and British exponents at the head of the National Academy of Sciences and in the Cavendish Chair, even the disciples of Rutherford are being forced to acknowledge its existence!

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