Story of the Developments in Statistical Physics of Fracture, Breakdown \& Earthquake: A Personal Account

TL;DR

This paper reviews four decades of progress in the statistical physics of fracture, breakdown, and earthquakes, emphasizing their importance in condensed matter physics education and highlighting key conceptual advances.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive personal account of the field's development and advocates for integrating these concepts into standard physics curricula.

Findings

Major progress has been made in understanding fracture and earthquakes.

Key concepts should be included in graduate physics textbooks.

The development of the field is comparable to other Nobel-recognized topics.

Abstract

We review the developments of the statistical physics of fracture and earthquake over the last four decades. We argue that major progress has been made in this field and that the key concepts should now become integral part of the (under-) graduate level text books in condensed matter physics. For arguing in favor of this, we compare the development (citations) with the same for some other related topics in condensed matter, for which Nobel prizes have already been awarded.