ICTS

The glass transition problem has puzzled many physicists, chemists and engineers for avery long time. When liquids of very different kinds are supercooled, they exhibit slowdynamics and become (non-crystalline) solids at some temperature Tg which depends onthe cooling rate and the material being cooled. This temperature goes down withdecreasing cooling rate and approaches a value TK in the limit of slow cooling. I willpresent an introduction to the phenomenology of the glass transition problem and a fewpopular theories that try to explain it. I will then introduce the Random First OrderTransition (RFOT) theory of the ideal glass transition. With this background, I willpresent some tests of the RFOT theory based on simulations of supercooled liquids inthe presence of random pinning.