**Abstract**

Mineral physics emerged as an independent discipline of Earth sciences in the middle of the 20th century, drawing together geophysics and mineralogy. Using the principles of condensed matter physics and solid-state chemistry, it focuses on exploring how physical properties of minerals depend on atomic structure. With the advent of new experimental tools (e.g., automated X-ray diffractometers, electron microscopes, various spectrometric techniques, digital computers and synchrotron X-radiation sources) in the past 70 years, geophysicists and mineralogists began to talk with one another.

**Keywords:** mineral physics, geophysics, mineralogy, high pressure, high temperature, applications to earth
