No-one who took part in the NATO Advanced Studies Institute from which this book emerges will have forgotten the experience. True, the necessary conditions for a very successful workshop were satisfied: a field of physics bursting with new power and new puzzles, a matchless team of lecturers, an international gathering of students many of whom had themselves contributed at the forefront of their subject, an admirable overlap of experiment and theory, a good mix of experimenters and theorists, an enviable environment. But who could have foreseen the way the workshop became a focus for future directions, how fresh scientific ideas tumbled out of the discussion periods, how the context of teaching the field produced such fruitfulness of research at the highest level? The organisers did have some specific aims in mind. Perhaps foremost was the desire to compare notes among different areas within the sub field of soft condensed matter physics fast becoming known as "complex fluids". For readers seeking a definition, the prosaic "fluids with bits in" can be passed rapidly over in favour of the elegant discussion of slow variables by Scott Milner in his chapter. The uniting goals of the subject are to model the essential molecular or mesoscopic structure theoretically, and to probe this structure as well as the bulk response of the system experimentally. Our famous examples were: colloids, polymers, liquid crystals, block co-polymers and self-assembling surfactant systems.

Synopsis

The work is designed for postgraduates as an introduction to theoretical methods in the area of soft condensed matter, containing descriptions of dynamics and non-equilibrium statistical mechanics. Since the mid-1980s connections have been made between polymers, colloids, liquid crystals and self-assemblies, and these have greatly assisted our understanding of a growing amount of experimental data on their dynamic properties: light scattering, rheology, flow-induced phase transitions, X-ray and neutron scattering. This work is suitable as a graduate text as well as for the seasoned researcher. Many contributions conclude with research material stimulated by the discussions at the ASI that gave rise to the book.

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