  Glasses are structurally liquid-like, but mechanically solid-like. Most
attempts to understand glasses start from liquid state theory. Here we take the
opposite point of view, and use concepts from solid state physics. We determine
the vibrational modes of a colloidal glass experimentally, and find soft
low-frequency modes that are very different in nature from the usual acoustic
vibrations of ordinary solids. These modes extend over surprisingly large
length scales.
