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Transitions still to be made

A collection of many particles all interacting according to simple, local rules can show behaviour that is anything but simple or predictable. Yet such systems constitute most of the tangible Universe, and the theories that describe them continue to represent one of the most useful contributions of physics.

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Figure 1: The Ising model at the critical point.

(Courtesy of Alistair Bruce, University of Edinburgh.)

Figure 2

(From ref. 12.)

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Correspondence to Philip Ball.

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Ball, P. Transitions still to be made. Nature 402 (Suppl 6761), C73–C76 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/35011567

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