About the Author Steve Granick directs the IBS Center for Soft and Living Matter at UNIST. Previously for 30 years he was at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA), most recently as Racheff Chair Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, of Chemistry, of Physics and Biophysics, and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. He graduated from Princeton University in 1978 and in 1982 earned his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin. His Ph.D. studies were with John D. Ferry, who was the pre-eminent polymer physical chemist of his generation. His postdoctoral research was with P.-G. de Gennes, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1991. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (USA). (sgranick@ibs.re.kr)

The intellectual challenge of my field is to understand honestly, from the standpoint of rigorous physics, everyday things, and to improve them. Soft matter is about the physics of daily life, about discovering the underlying simplicities in daily life, complex though it is. Not surprisingly, many similar questions arise from the standpoint of technology. The science-technology link often gives rise to new fundamental research questions and allows the field to provide service to society. To the extent that this field meets its goals, we will better understand how we are born, how we die, and how to improve our lives in between.

From the perspective of 10,000 meters in the air, it would be false dichotomy to split condensed matter into islands, "hard" and "soft." As physicists, we share the goal of iscovering the quantitative rules of scientific law and order; and living in the 21st century, breathing the same air intellectually, we face common overarching challenges. For example, the problem of emergence and collective behavior–when many atoms/molecules come together, what fundamentally new properties emerge? For example, the problem of nonequilibrium – when matter is driven out of equilibrium, when energy is pumped into systems, how can we understand the emergent properties of systems whose mode of excitation is not thermal? What are the resulting global dynamics, in these systems that so commonly are crowded and collective in response? For example, the problem of biomolecular science – when does quantum mechanics matter (or not), and how to generalize the answers beyond a zoological inventory of myriads of individual systems? How, recognizing that the final answer will have ramifications from technology to biology, does nature make such materials? These and related problems embrace some of the greatest scientific challenges of the 21st century.

Of course, the devil is in details. In the problems of "hard" condensed matter physics, inter-atomic forces and quantum mechanics are at the heart of the matter, whereas "soft" matter is not usually dominated by quantum mechanics, and the systems of interest are literally "softer." Much of the fun is in digging through details of specific systems, and this age's technical power to do so has never been greater. I do not believe the skeptics who might argue these problems are too difficult for physics. The riskiest path of all, would be to avoid risks.

A paradox is that progress in other countries is held back by various economic difficulties, yet the scientific promise of this field has never been more exciting. It is relevant that numerous industries revolve around applying these principles: among them, liquid crystals, synthetic polymers, membrane systems, protein assays, and bioengineering. Inadequate understanding of soft matter holds back progress in vital societal needs: health issues with ramifications from genetic development to nanomedicine, and environmental issues from climate change and water purity, to affordable energy. Long-term investment can have major impact in this important scientific area where the secular trend elsewhere in the world is to focus on the short-term. Great intellectual problems require sustained funding for their solution; research projects in the U.S. and Europe are tied to the 3-year lifecycle of grants, which confines them to being relatively uncreative and incapable of taking risks. Institutions with soft matter interests elsewhere in the world are under economic stress, and increasingly under pressure to pursue short-term engineering of an applied nature. This is the Korean competitive advantage.

When I received unexpectedly, after I had spent 30 years working at the University of Illinois in the U.S.A., the chance to form an interdisciplinary IBS Center on Soft and Living Matter (www.softmatt.ibs.re.kr), it became an offer I could not refuse. Now we aim to train a new generation of Korean academicians in this intellectual area where scientific excellence can have major impact on society. With hard work and good luck, students and postdocs who work on these problems may one day change the world at the highest level. A Nobel Physics Prize was given in this area once to my postdoc advisor (de Gennes, 1991) but this was for theory: on the experimental side, and in modern areas of theory and simulation, the field is developing explosively and the coming 10 years have the potential to deliver scientific advances even better than those in the past. I am honored to have this chance to work with you in Korea; I am proud to be your colleague at this exciting time; and I thank you for allowing me to join you.