At Yamada Conference LIII, papers on many novel materials and on novel phenomena in condensed matter physics were presented - for instance, the achievement of simultaneous creation of excitons and free-electron-hole pairs in rare gas solids, and a low frequency fluctuation of the spectral shift of indirect excitons in GaAs coupled quantum wells. Single molecule spectroscopy is a powerful tool for studying molecules including biological systems; the study of delocalization of excitons in the photosynthetic light harvesting antenna system was also reported. The proceedings thus contain many...

Throughout my whole career including student time I have had a feeling that leaning and teaching electromagnetism, especially macroscopic Maxwell equations (M-eqs) is dif?cult. In order to make a good use of these equations, it seemed necessary to be able to use certain empirical knowledges and model-dependent concepts, rather than pure logics. Many of my friends, colleagues and the physicists I have met on various occasions have expressed similar impressions. This is not the case with microscopic M-eqs and quantum mechanics, which do not make us feel reluctant to teach, probably because of...