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On the “mosaic” picture of liquids and glasses
[Sur l’image en « mosaïque » des liquides et des verres]
Jorge Kurchan1 
1 Laboratoire de Physique de l’École Normale Supérieure, ENS, Université PSL, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, Université de Paris, F-75005 Paris, France
Comptes Rendus. Physique, Volume 26 (2025), pp. 271-283.

Cet article fait partie du numéro thématique Gérard Toulouse, une vie de découvertes et d'engagement coordonné par Bernard Derrida et al..

Les liquides surfondus sont parfois décrits comme étant composés d’une mosaïque de fragments pouvant être répertoriés dans une « bibliothèque », chacun ayant une forme d’ordre non périodique. En examinant de plus près, cette construction se révèle insaisissable. En tentant de donner un sens précis à la notion de mosaïque, nous sommes inévitablement conduits à la construction d’une procédure pour compresser l’information dans la configuration des particules, essentiellement la même que celle utilisée pour les textes. La quantité d’information nécessaire pour un encodage optimal définit directement l’entropie configurationnelle. Un solide, dans cette perspective, est une disposition de particules décrite par une faible quantité d’information, qui ne peut circuler qu’en se fragmentant en pièces non corrélées, augmentant ainsi sa complexité.

Supercooled liquids are sometimes described as being composed of a mosaic of patches that may be listed in a “library”, each one having some form of non-periodic order. Looking closer, one finds this construction elusive. In attempting to give the notion of mosaic a precise sense, we find that we are inevitably led to the construction of a procedure for compressing the information in the particle configuration, essentially the same as that used for texts. The amount of stored information needed by an optimal encoding directly defines the configurational entropy. A solid, in this view, is a particle arrangement described by a low amount of information, that can only flow by breaking into uncorrelated pieces, thus increasing its complexity.

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DOI : 10.5802/crphys.234
Keywords: Order, Solidity, Configurational entropy, Glasses
Mots-clés : Ordre, Solidité, Entropie configurationnelle, Verres

Jorge Kurchan 1

1 Laboratoire de Physique de l’École Normale Supérieure, ENS, Université PSL, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, Université de Paris, F-75005 Paris, France
Licence : CC-BY 4.0
Droits d'auteur : Les auteurs conservent leurs droits 
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Jorge Kurchan. On the “mosaic” picture of liquids and glasses. Comptes Rendus. Physique, Volume 26 (2025), pp. 271-283. doi : 10.5802/crphys.234. https://comptes-rendus.academie-sciences.fr/physique/articles/10.5802/crphys.234/

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