ICAM White Paper
John Sarrao
Los Alamos National Laboratory
MST-10, MS K764
Los Alamos, NM 87545
(505) 665-0481
(505) 665-7652 FAX
"Complex adaptive matter" has two rather separate meanings to me. On the one hand it represents a notion that not all of materials research can be viewed as mean-field-like in which separate degrees of freedom can be treated independently, but rather that competing interactions give rise to many of the phenomena that we are interested in explaining and exploiting. On the other hand, CAM is more generally a call to interdisciplinarity. In the same sense that degrees of freedom in a given material cannot be treated independently, it is short-sighted to consider certain materials problems the particular domain of, for example, biology or chemistry or condensed matter physics or metallurgy. It is precisely by combining and synthesizing the collective wisdom of these separate fields that we can hope to understand the complex materials problems that face us today. ICAM has the potential to advance both of these meanings.
Through the workshop, I hope that we can lay the foundation for such an interdisciplinary approach to complex problems. For both the particular scientific problems in which I am interested (quantum critical phenomena and the interaction/ coexistence of magnetism and superconductivity) and the administrative/structural vision of an Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter, I believe specificity is key. Although our ultimate goal may well be an interdisciplinary blending of chemistry, physics, and biology that produces a theory of everything, in the short term we will be more successful if we focus on the unification of outstanding problems in hard matter (for example heavy Fermions and high Tc) and separate equally-well-defined problems in soft matter/biomatter. In my opinion, identifying/creating similarities between these separate fields may aid in taxonomy and categorization but does not get at the roots of any particular problem.
For LANL, ICAM can provide a mechanism to break down divisional and discipline-specific barriers. In order to accomplish this, it seems to me that we must establish specific small-scale goals and objectives for any eventual CAM initiative, and any funding that might result should be directed at solving particular problems using LANL's unique capabilities and facilities and not just at promoting interdisciplinarity in some loose sense. Unfortunately, collaboration is a union that cannot be forced. Only in evaluating the objective accomplishments of small seeded efforts can we judge whether CAM has been a successful initiative from an institutional perspective.