Home Forums setting the stage solids as quantum systems Definition of a solid

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    moretp
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    A collection of atoms or molecules that are fixed in space relative to each other at nonzero temperature and under nonzero forces. This condition should hold on a human timescale (minutes, hours), and over at least a microscopic spatial scale (i.e. a molecule is not a solid because its relative positions are only fixed on the angstrom scale; but a fine dust made of micrometer particles is a solid, for example).

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