Perspectives on opportunities in experimental soft-matter science

Soft materials consist of basic units that are significantly larger than an atom but much smaller than the overall dimensions of the sample. The label "soft condensed matter" emphasizes that the large basic building blocks of these materials produce low elastic moduli that govern a material's ability to withstand deformations. Aside from softness, there are many other properties that are also caused by the large size of the constituent building blocks. Soft matter is dissipative, disordered, far-from-equilibrium, non-linear, thermal and entropic, slow, observable, gravity-affected, patterned, non-local, interfacially elastic and active. This is only a partial list of how matter created from large component particles is distinct from "hard matter" composed of constituents at an atomic scale. Issues inherent in soft matter raise problems that are broadly important in diverse areas of science and require multiple modes of attack. For example, far-from-equilibrium behavior is confronted in biology, chemistry, geophysics, astrophysics and nuclear physics. Similarly, issues dealing with disorder appear broadly throughout many branches of inquiry wherever rugged landscapes are invoked. This article reviews the discussions that occurred during a workshop held on January 30-31, 2016 in which opportunities in soft-matter experiment were surveyed. Soft matter has had an exciting history of discovery and continues to be a fertile ground for future research.