The first five articles in this issue emphasize equilibrium phases and structures. The hard sphere properties of sterically stabilized particle suspensions are examined in the article by van Megan, Pusey and Bartlett, a colloidal compound is discussed by Hachisu and attractive interactions are shown to produce a full complement of phase transitions including a liquid/gas transition by Emmett and Vincent. Recent theoretical interest in the nature of melting in two dimensions has led to the investigation of the melting transition in colloidal systems where the particles are constrained to a single layer. Murray, Van Winkle and Wenk present experimental results supporting the view that two dimensional melting is mediated by two second order transitions, while Tang, Armstrong, Mockler and O'Sullivan present results suggesting a first order process in a similar colloidal monolayer.

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.

Recent developments in the multi-disciplinary field of colloidal systems are discussed. The topics considered include: * Long-lived non-equilibrium states; colloidal aggregates, glasses, and gels * Relaxation to equilibrium; phase transition kinetics; ageing * The effects of shear and other external fields; rheology * Hydrodynamic interactions; diffusion * The construction of specific colloidal structures by depletion forces, templating, and laser tweezers (assisted self assembly). Faraday Discussions documents a long-established series of Faraday Discussion meetings which provide a unique international forum for the exchange of views and newly acquired results in developing areas of physical chemistry, biophysical chemistry and chemical physics. The papers presented are published in the Faraday Discussion volume together with a record of the discussion contributions made at the meeting. Faraday Discussions therefore provide an important record of current international knowledge and views in the field concerned.

This book encompasses our current understanding of the ensemble approach to many-body physics, phase transitions and other thermal phenomena, as well as the quantum foundations of linear response theory, kinetic equations and stochastic processes. It is destined to be a standard text for graduate students, but it will also serve the specialist-researcher in this fascinating field; some more elementary topics have been included in order to make the book self-contained.The historical methods of J Willard Gibbs and Ludwig Boltzmann, applied to the quantum description rather than phase space, are featured. The tools for computations in the microcanonical, canonical and grand-canonical ensembles are carefully developed and then applied to a variety of classical and standard quantum situations. After the language of second quantization has been introduced, strongly interacting systems, such as quantum liquids, superfluids and superconductivity, are treated in detail. For the connoisseur, there is a section on diagrammatic methods and applications.In the second part dealing with non-equilibrium processes, the emphasis is on the quantum foundations of Markovian behaviour and irreversibility via the Pauli-Van Hove master equation. Justifiable linear response expressions and the quantum-Boltzmann approach are discussed and applied to various condensed matter problems. From this basis the Onsager-Casimir relations are derived, together with the mesoscopic master equation, the Langevin equation and the Fokker-Planck truncation procedure. Brownian motion and modern stochastic problems such as fluctuations in optical signals and radiation fields briefly make the round.