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Glassy systems are characterized by disorder and slow relaxation. Examples of such systems include structural ("window") glass, spin glass, dipolar glass, and vortex glass. All these systems exhibit complex energy or free energy "landscapes" with large numbers of local minima. Many systems outside the realm of conventional physics also exhibit complex energy landscapes. Theoretical treatments of such systems involve concepts and methods that originate from the work of Giorgio Parisi, a co-recipient of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics. After a brief account of Parisi's pioneering contributions (replica symmetry breaking in particular), I will present some of our work on glassy systems that illustrates various aspects of the landscape paradigm. |