Editing Sam Edwards (physicist) (section)

==Academic research==
[[File:Staircase L Gonville & Caius.jpg|thumb|Edwards's name on Staircase L at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge in 2010.]]
Edwards's work in [[condensed matter physics]] started in 1958 with a paper<ref group=pubs name=1958pub/> which showed that statistical properties of disordered systems (glasses, gels etc.) could be described by the [[Feynman diagram]] and [[path integral formulation|path integral]] methods invented in quantum field theory. During the following 35 years Edwards worked in the theoretical study of complex materials, such as polymers, gels, colloids and similar systems.  His paper<ref group=pubs name=1965pub/> came in 1965 which "in one stroke founded the modern quantitative understanding of polymer matter."<ref name=":0" /> [[Pierre-Gilles de Gennes]] extended Edwards's 1965 work, ultimately leading to de Gennes's [[List of Nobel laureates in Physics|1991 Nobel Prize in Physics]].<ref name=":0" />

Edwards invented what is known as the [[replica trick]] or replica method to evaluate the disorder-averaged [[Free energy principle|free energy]] of glassy systems, which has been successfully applied to [[spin glass]] and to [[amorphous solids]]. His  1971 paper<ref>Sam Edwards (1971), Statistical mechanics of rubber. In ''Polymer networks: structural and mechanical properties'', (eds A. J. Chompff & S. Newman). New York: Plenum Press,  ISBN 978-1-4757-6210-5.</ref> was the first paper to introduce the [[replica trick]] and Edwards' work led ultimately to [[Giorgio Parisi]]'s [[List of Nobel laureates in Physics|2021 Nobel Prize in Physics]].

The Doi-Edwards theory of polymer melt [[viscoelasticity]] originated from an initial publication of Edwards in 1967,<ref group=pubs name=1967pub/> was expanded upon by de Gennes in 1971, and was subsequently formalized through a series of publications between Edwards and [[Masao Doi]] in the late 1970s.<ref name=":0" />