title: The middle way.
abstract: Mesoscopic organization in soft, hard, and biological matter is examined in the context of our present understanding of the principles responsible for emergent organized behavior (crystallinity, ferromagnetism, superconductivity, etc.) at long wavelengths in very large aggregations of particles. Particular attention is paid to the possibility that as-yet-undiscovered organizing principles might be at work at the mesoscopic scale, intermediate between atomic and macroscopic dimensions, and the implications of their discovery for biology and the physical sciences. The search for the existence and universality of such rules, the proof or disproof of organizing principles appropriate to the mesoscopic domain, is called the middle way.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
authors.forename: R B
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Laughlin
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pines
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Schmalian
authors.forename: B P
authors.initials: BP
authors.lastname: Stojkovic
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Wolynes
mesh_terms: D046911:Macromolecular Substances; D008967:Molecular Biology; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry*; D011789:Quantum Theory
chemical_list: D046911:Macromolecular Substances; D011506:Proteins