A theoretical physicist who, with Philip Warren Anderson, developed a description of spin glasses using an order parameter based on persistent local-spin correlations. A material can lack a net magnetization while individual spins retain memory of their orientation. Edwards's own account connects this problem with ideas from disordered polymer networks and explains the use of replicas in calculating thermodynamic behavior.[ref]
Citation Classic commentary on Theory of spin glasses by Sam Edwards. p. 20: local-spin memory, polymer-network analogy and replica method
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