Philip W. Anderson

Anderson localization is the phenomenon where disorder in a material can prevent waves or electrons from spreading freely. Philip W. Anderson introduced the idea in a 1958 paper.

Anderson shared the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physics with Nevill Mott and John Hasbrouck van Vleck. The prize recognized theoretical work on the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems.

Broken symmetry describes cases where a physical system's actual state has less symmetry than the laws governing it. Anderson's work helped make this idea central to condensed matter physics.

More Is Different, published in 1972, argues that complex systems can have new laws and behavior not obvious from their microscopic parts. The essay became a classic statement for condensed matter physics and emergence.