The New Philosopher’s Stone: ‘Hard’ and ‘Soft’ Matter under Pressure

The mythical Philosopher's Stone was expected to transform ordinary metals and even stones into gold. It symbolized the immense life-changing value for a 'disposer.' For high and extreme pressures implementations, the power to transform 'ordinary materials' is incomparably greater. The new materials with exotic features can even be a pivotal factor for a qualitative, civilizational transformation. First, the report presents basic high-pressure facilities necessary to carry out studies across an extreme pressure and temperature range. Further, it is emphasized that for a qualitative change in properties, the pressure-related force exerted must be proportional to the strength of local bonds within a body. For standard 'Hard Matter' systems, this means pressures even close to those near Earth's core (365 GPa). The disappearance of exotic states after decompression is also a grand problem. Special attention was paid to metallic hydrogen due to its groundbreaking importance for new-generation space travel concepts. Soft Matter systems are dominated by mesoscale collective processes, which lower 'extreme pressures' even well below ~1GPa , allowing for studies in large-volume pressure chambers. Examples presented are related to high-pressure food preservation (HPP), huge densification of solid glasses by annealing just below the glass transition, and emerging possibilities to address the great challenges of searching systems exhibiting stable negative electrical capacitance and stable negative electrical resistance.