  Soft materials consist of basic units that are significantly larger than an
atom but much smaller than the overall dimensions of the sample. The label
"soft condensed matter" emphasizes that the large basic building blocks of
these materials produce low elastic moduli that govern a material's ability to
withstand deformations. Aside from softness, there are many other properties
that are also caused by the large size of the constituent building blocks. Soft
matter is dissipative, disordered, far-from-equilibrium, non-linear, thermal
and entropic, slow, observable, gravity-affected, patterned, non-local,
interfacially elastic and active. This is only a partial list of how matter
created from large component particles is distinct from "hard matter" composed
of constituents at an atomic scale. Issues inherent in soft matter raise
problems that are broadly important in diverse areas of science and require
multiple modes of attack. For example, far-from-equilibrium behavior is
confronted in biology, chemistry, geophysics, astrophysics and nuclear physics.
Similarly, issues dealing with disorder appear broadly throughout many branches
of inquiry wherever rugged landscapes are invoked. This article reviews the
discussions that occurred during a workshop held on January 30-31, 2016 in
which opportunities in soft-matter experiment were surveyed. Soft matter has
had an exciting history of discovery and continues to be a fertile ground for
future research.
