The best introduction part of any book I have ever seen so far. It is taken from a book called ''The oxford solid state basics'', I had a dream of becoming an astrophysicist or cosmologist, but one day I out of no where, casually decided to explore what other branches/fields of physics looks like so I downloaded several books for different fields and I stumbled on this masterpiece introductory part of this book. I read 4-5 pages and immediately realized the elegance of condensed matter physics, I saw that I was just sentimental when I choose astrophysics/cosmology over other fields of physics without any research. So i'd say this book has revolutionized my way of thinking and ambition tremendously. It is those fractions of moments that change our life!!!

Moral of the story: Never skip the preludes, prefaces, foreword, intros or even a single page when you read a book. Sometimes they are way useful and informative than the entire body of the book.