Structure of matter : an introductory course with problems

In most Universities, there is presently a first period of three or four years, common to all the students and devoted to elementary aspects, followed by a more advanced program in rather specialized fields.

The difficult task is to provide a common and formative introduction in the first period still suitable as a basis for building up more advanced courses and to bridge the large area between elementary physics and the topics pertaining to research activities.

The present attempt towards a readable book, essentially is based on a mixture of simplified institutional theory with solved problems.

The hope, in this way, is to provide physical insights, basic culture and motivation, without deteriorating the possibility of fruitful more advanced subsequent learning.

The choice has been to limit the attention to key concepts and to the most typical aspects of atoms, molecules and solids, looking at the basic "structural" aspects while avoiding to deal in detail with the properties that originate from them.The problems are entangled to the formal presentation of the arguments, being designed as an intrinsic part of the pathway the student should move by in order to grasp the key concepts.

The aim of the melange intuition-theory-exercises pursued in the text is to favour the acquisition of the basic knowledge in the wide and wonderful field of the condensed matter, emphasizing how phenomenological properties originate from the microscopic, quantum features of the nature.