I. Personal reminiscences. Introduction. "BCS" and me. A mile of dirty lead wire: a fable for the scientifically literate. Scientific and personal reminiscences of Ryogo Kubo -- II. History. Introduction. Physics at Bell Labs, 1949-1984: young Turks and younger Turks. It's not over till the fat lady sings. Reflections on twentieth century physics: historical overview of the 20t century in Physics. 21st century Physics. Y. Nambu and broken symmetry. Nevill Mott, John Slater, and the "magnetic state": winning the prize and losing the PR battle -- III. Philosophy and sociology. Introduction. Emergence vs. reductionism. Is the theory of everything the theory of anything? Is measurement itself an emergent property? Good news and bad news. The future lies ahead. Could modern America have invented wave mechanics?. Loose ends and Gordian knots of the string cult. Imaginary friend, who art in heaven -- IV. Science tactics and strategy. Introduction. Solid state experimentalists: theory should be on tap, not on top. Shadows of doubt. The Reverend Thomas Bayes, needles in haystacks, and the fifth force. Emerging physics. On the nature of physical laws. On the "unreasonable efficacy of mathematics"--A proposition by Wigner. When scientists go astray. Further investigations -- V. Genius. Introduction. What mad pursuit. Complexities of Feynman coffee-table complexities. Search for polymath's elementary particles. Giant who started the silicon age. The quiet man of physics. A theoretical physicist. Some thoughtful words (not mine) on research strategy for theorists -- VI. Science wars. Introduction. They think it's all over. Science: a 'dappled world' or a 'seamless web'? Reply to Cartwright. Postmodernism, politics and religion -- VII. Politics and science. Introduction. Politics and science. The case against Star Wars. A dialogue about Star Wars. No facts, just the right answers -- VIII. Futurology. Introduction. Futurology. Dizzy with future Schlock. Einstein and the p-branes. Forecaster fails to detect any clouds -- IX. Complexity. Introduction. Physics: the opening to complexity. Is complexity physics? Is it science? What is it? Complexity II: the Santa Fe Institute. Whole truths false in part -- X. Popularization attempts. Introduction. Who or what is RVB? More on RVB. Brainwashed by Feynman? Just exactly what do you do, Dr. Anderson? What is a condensed matter theorist? Global economy II: or, how do you follow a great act?

This monograph is an intelligible introduction to some of the most significant concepts in the physics of condensed matter. The general principles of many-body physics and perturbation theory are emphasized, providing supportive mathematical structure.

A wide range of work is described on surface and bulk properties of materials. Work upon metal semiconductor interfaces and its application to Schottky barriers and photoemission is described. Related to this is the continuing investigation into surface induced superconductivity and reasons are suggested as to why the goal may be illusionary. The developments of the calculation of the optical scattering potential for surface scattering (as in LEED) are described and its gross properties explained in terms of a simple model. The application of local methods to semiconductors can be applied to a large range of surface problems. Two developments are described here, on bulk properties, the calculation of the dielectric response, and the application of the Anderson chemical, pseudopotential to a range of bulk properties of semiconductors and 'non-simple' materials. This last method shows promise of connecting solid state physics to the more chemical ideas of bond properties. Also using a local method we describe some promising work on the Laves phases of transition metal alloys which are too complicated to calculate in the normal K-space form but have important technical applications. Finally in solids we describe the recent work on spin glasses which breaks new ground in the understanding of this system and has important consequences for the theory of a number of polymer related problems.