The perception of physics in the minds of the public is one of esoteric exploration, elucidating the fundamentals of space, time and energy — even the nature of reality itself. And much effort is indeed devoted to articulating and exploring these deep concepts, whose grip on the public's imagination is both undeniable and entirely appropriate. But such investigations do not form the stock-in-trade for the vast majority of physicists, who have chosen instead to focus their efforts on understanding the physical properties of solid matter. Should we conclude that they have little to boast about? Or even suggest that solid-state physics is fundamentally rather mundane?

Far from it. Much of the research that underpins modern technologies — from cars to computers, televisions to telecommunications — has its roots in the physics of the solid state. Occasional debates over whether one should have confidence in science more generally have already been fundamentally won by these self-same developments. The impact of solid-state physics on society is hard to overstate.

But it would be disingenuous to imply that the attraction of research in solid-state physics is primarily driven by a desire to benefit humanity materially. Such a motivation is undoubtedly present within the community, but for most physicists studying the solid state, the central appeal is similar to that driving their more exotically inclined brethren: intellectual richness and the excitement of the imagination. And a very large element of surprise.

Consider two very different examples, both of which continue to feature frequently in these pages. Just over twenty years ago, the solid-state physics community was shaken by the discovery of high-temperature superconductivity — the unanticipated realization of zero-resistance electrical transport in a family of complex copper oxides, at temperatures too high to be accommodated by the theoretical framework that already existed for explaining such phenomena. (As it happens, the classical Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer (BCS) theory of conventional superconductivity is itself celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.) Of course, this stimulated much anticipation about how such materials might find serious practical application — still largely wishful thinking, unfortunately, although not altogether beyond the realms of possibility. But what continues to drive interest in these fascinating materials is the fact that their properties have yet to be understood.

More recently, this same community has born witness to another unexpected development: the discovery of unusual electronic and mechanical properties in graphene — individual crystalline layers of carbon only one atom thick. The surprise in this case is that these layers, when stacked up to form their parent material, graphite, constitute a well-known and much-studied material system that, from a solid-state physics perspective, arguably does fit the description of mundane. This system, too, has potential for practical application, but let's not get ahead of ourselves — the true cause for compelling interest is that graphene provides a powerful test-bed on which to explore the validity of some of the core concepts of solid-state physics. So far, these theoretical foundations are standing up to scrutiny pretty well, but there may well be further surprises to come. Several papers in this issue highlight some of the richness of graphene and of solid-state research in other areas (see pages 36, 52–70 and http://www.nature.com/conferences/aps/index.html).

The next few years can be expected to bring outstanding, high-profile science as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the European particle-physics laboratory near Geneva, starts to explore the landscape of particles and forces at energies never before attained in a laboratory. Who knows what other surprises may be in store (see page 16) as astronomers and physicists probe the nature of the vacuum in other ways? The results will be of no obvious use to anyone, and yet they represent exactly the sort of fundamental exploration that fascinates much of humanity. At the much lower energies found in any university lab, meanwhile, solid-state physicists will carry on unobtrusively changing our lives.