“The importance of knowledge consists not only in its direct practical utility but also in the fact the it promotes a widely contemplative habit of mind; on this ground, utility is to be found in much of the knowledge that is nowadays labelled ‘useless’. ” Bertrand Russel, In Praise of Idleness, London (1935) “Why are scientists in so many cases so deeply interested in their work ? Is it merely because it is useful ? It is only necessary to talk to such scientists to discover that the utilitarian possibilities of their work are generally of secondary interest to them. Something else is primary. ” David Bohm, On creativity, Abingdon (1996) In this volume, the dynamical critical behaviour of many-body systems far from equilibrium is discussed. Therefore, the intrinsic properties of the - namics itself, rather than those of the stationary state, are in the focus of 1 interest. Characteristically, far-from-equilibrium systems often display - namical scaling, even if the stationary state is very far from being critical. A 1 As an example of a non-equilibrium phase transition, with striking practical c- sequences, consider the allotropic change of metallic ?-tin to brittle ?-tin. At o equilibrium, the gray ?-Sn becomes more stable than the silvery ?-Sn at 13. 2 C. Kinetically, the transition between these two solid forms of tin is rather slow at higher temperatures. It starts from small islands of ?-Sn, the growth of which proceeds through an auto-catalytic reaction.

This book describes two main classes of non-equilibrium phase-transitions: static and dynamics of transitions into an absorbing state, and dynamical scaling in far-from-equilibrium relaxation behavior and ageing.

Covering the elementary aspects of the physics of phases transitions and the renormalization group, this popular book is widely used both for core graduate statistical mechanics courses as well as for more specialized courses. Emphasizing understanding and clarity rather than technical manipulation, these lectures de-mystify the subject and show precisely "how things work." Goldenfeld keeps in mind a reader who wants to understand why things are done, what the results are, and what in principle can go wrong. The book reaches both experimentalists and theorists, students and even active researchers, and assumes only a prior knowledge of statistical mechanics at the introductory graduate level.Advanced, never-before-printed topics on the applications of renormalization group far from equilibrium and to partial differential equations add to the uniqueness of this book.

This book is devoted to the study of evolution of nonequilibrium systems. Such a system usually consists of regions with different dominant scales, which coexist in the space-time where the system lives. In the case of high nonuniformity in special direction, one can see patterns separated by clearly distinguishable boundaries or interfaces. The author considers several examples of nonequilibrium systems. One of the examples describes the invasion of the solid phase into the liquidphase during the crystallization process. Another example is the transition from oxidized to reduced states in certain chemical reactions. An easily understandable example of the transition in the temporal direction is a sound beat, and the author describes typical patterns associated with thisphenomenon. The main goal of the book is to present a mathematical approach to the study of highly nonuniform systems and to illustrate it with examples from physics and chemistry. The two main theories discussed are the theory of singular perturbations and the theory of dissipative systems. A set of carefully selected examples of physical and chemical systems nicely illustrates the general methods described in the book.

The present theoretical and experimental knowledge of the time evolution of a system during solidification, not only in equilibrium, but also in nonequilibrium conditions, is summarized in this book. Such knowledge is of fundamental importance for the determination of the constitution of materials or of the technological conditions necessary to prepare materials with a desired structure. Emphasizing the importance of kinetic phase diagrams, the authors focus the attention of the reader on the problems connected with nonequilibrium conditions, that are encountered during real phase transformations. A critical review of phenomenological and statistical theories of phase transformations and of mass and heat transport enables the reader to determine the range of applicability of concrete models for the description of the evolution of a given system. The book is supplemented with several less-known methods and results of phase characterization, including a detailed account of the Soviet school of T.A. Cherepanova which is not well known in the West. The text also covers the modern research area of glasses and their preparation.

The study of phase transitions is among the most fascinating fields in physics. Originally limited to transition phenomena in equilibrium systems, this field has outgrown its classical confines during the last two decades. The behavior of far from equilibrium systems has received more and more attention and has been an extremely active and productive subject of research for physicists, chemists and biologists. Their studies have brought about a more unified vision of the laws which govern self-organization processes of physico-chemical and biological sys tems. A major achievement has been the extension of the notion of phase transi tion to instabilities which occur only in open nonlinear systems. The notion of phase transition has been proven fruitful in apphcation to nonequilibrium ins- bihties known for about eight decades, like certain hydrodynamic instabilities, as well as in the case of the more recently discovered instabilities in quantum optical systems such as the laser, in chemical systems such as the Belousov-Zhabotinskii reaction and in biological systems. Even outside the realm of natural sciences, this notion is now used in economics and sociology. In this monograph we show that the notion of phase transition can be extend ed even further. It apphes also to a new class of transition phenomena which occur only in nonequilibrium systems subjected to a randomly fluctuating en vironment.