Understanding plastic motion of solids — in which atoms change their neighbours as they move — is complicated because it is discontinuous and does not conserve energy. An elegant study of vortex dynamics in superconductors provides new insights.
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Crabtree, G. The mysteries of plastic motion. Nature Mater 2, 435–436 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat927
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat927