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An award-winning Oxford physicist draws on classic sci-fi, fantasy fiction, and everyday phenomena to explain and celebrate the magical properties of the world around us.. If you were to present the feats of modern science to someone from the past, those feats would surely be considered magic. Theoretical physicist Felix Flicker proves that they are indeed magic - just familiar magic. The name for this magic is "condensed matter physics." Most people haven't heard of the field, yet more than a third of physicists identify as condensed matter researchers, making it the most active area in the subject - with good reason. Condensed matter is the solids, liquids, and gasses that surround us - and the more exotic matters - which dictate every aspect of our present existence, and hold the keys to a brighter future, from quantum computing to real-life invisibility cloaks.