Introduction

This chapter provides an overview of Anderson’s career and contrasts his speciality, the physics of the very many (solid-state physics), with the areas of physics that tend to appear in popular media—the physics of the very small (particle physics) and the physics of the very distant (astrophysics and cosmology). It compares Anderson’s physics skills to those of a chess grandmaster. The number of pieces (atoms and electrons) is so large that merely knowing the microscopic rules of the game is not enough to gain real understanding. There is a focus on the big ideas Anderson brought to the table—symmetry breaking, emergence, and complexity—and also his great interest in the cultural and political aspects of physics. The goal of the book is to help readers understand the magician-like skills Anderson brought to theoretical physics and the effect these had on his students, coworkers, community, and on scientific enterprise.