J. S. Langer (1980), Reviews of Modern Physics 52(1), 1–28 — DOI-10.1103/RevModPhys.52.1
Key takeaways
Filed, not read. Known here by what it is standardly cited for.
- A solidification front growing under diffusion-limited conditions is unstable: a bump on it reaches further into the supersaturated region and grows faster (the Mullins–Sekerka instability).
- Surface tension stabilizes short wavelengths, so the instability sets a characteristic length, and fast growth produces dendrites.
- What selects a dendrite’s tip speed and radius is posed as an open problem of pattern selection.
Standing in the record
Filed on 2026-10-11 to ground CLAIM-186, which holds that how fast an argument grows sets how it grows. This review is where the physical half of that analogy comes from. A reading should check which control parameter governs the transition from faceted to branched growth, since the claim maps that parameter onto the pace of an exchange.