Abstract

Sabyasachi Bhattacharya Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India Interfaces are sometimes imagined objects which conjure up different images in different contexts. They represent boundaries between real but dissimilar objects, have an identity of their own and typically ‘live’ in dimensions greater than their own. They are distinct from the objects they separate, but share some of their attributes. They become more dominant as physical systems become smaller or more inhomogeneous or environmentally more constrained. In this lecture I will discuss the usefulness of imparting reality to imagined interfaces in some natural phenomena, focusing on a simple system that might be called “marginally glassy”.