Fermi showed that, as a result of their quantum nature, electrons form a gas of particles whose temperature and density follow the so-called Fermi distribution. As shown by Landau, in a metal the electrons continue to act like free quantum mechanical particles with enhanced masses, despite their strong Coulomb interaction with each other and the positive background ions. This state of matter, the Landau-Fermi liquid, is recognized experimentally by an electrical resistivity that is proportional to the square of the absolute temperature plus a term proportional to the square of the frequency of the applied field. Calculations show that, if electron-electron scattering dominates the resistivity in a LandauFermi liquid, the ratio of the two terms, b, has the universal value of b = 4. We find that in the normal state of the heavy Fermion metal URu 2 Si 2 , instead of the Fermi liquid value of 4, the coefficient b = 1 ± 0.1. This unexpected result implies that the electrons in this material are experiencing a unique scattering process. This scattering is intrinsic and we suggest that the uranium f electrons do not hybridize to form a coherent Fermi liquid but instead act like a dense array of elastic impurities, interacting incoherently with the charge carriers. This behavior is not restricted to URu 2 Si 2 . Fermi liquid-like states with b ≠ 4 have been observed in a number of disparate systems, but the significance of this result has not been recognized.hidden order | resistance | infrared conductivity | resonant scattering A mong the heavy Fermion metals, URu 2 Si 2 is one of the most interesting: it displays, in succession, no fewer than four different behaviors. As is shown in Fig. 1, where the electrical resistivity is plotted as a function of temperature, at 300 K the material is a very bad metal in which the conduction electrons are incoherently scattered by localized uranium f electrons. Below T K ∼ 75 K, the resistivity drops and the material resembles a typical heavy Fermion metal (1-3). At T 0 = 17.5 K the "hiddenorder" phase transition gaps a substantial portion of the Fermi surface but the nature of the order parameter is not known. A number of exotic models for the ordered state have been proposed (4-7), but there is no definitive experimental evidence to support them. Finally, at 1.5 K URu 2 Si 2 becomes an unconventional superconductor. The electronic structure, as shown by both angle-resolved photoemission experiments (8) and bandstructure calculations (9) is complicated, with several bands crossing the Fermi surface. To investigate the nature of the hidden-order state we focus on the normal state just above the transition. This approach has been used in the high-temperature superconductors where the normal state shows evidence of discrete frequency magnetic excitations that appear to play the role that phonons play in normal superconductors (10). The early optical experiments of Bonn et al. (11) showed that URu 2 Si 2 at 20 K, above the hidden order transition, has an infrared spectrum consisting ...