# The nature of the glass transition

- kind: problem
- status: open
- year: 1948

**Statement.** Is the glass transition a true thermodynamic phase transition or only a dynamic slowing down?

As a liquid cools into a glass its viscosity rises by many orders of magnitude with little change in structure. Philip Anderson called it the deepest unsolved problem in solid state theory in 1995. Simulations have not settled whether an underlying ideal glass transition exists.

## Sources

- [Wikipedia: Glass transition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_transition)

[Fluids and many bodies](/wiki/Space:matter-in-motion.md) · [Physics](/wiki/Continent:physics.md)

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