conjecture a phase transition of a special kind, in which there is an unstable fixed point controlling the initial flows of the system. The flows to the unstable weak coupling fixed point may eventually follow the crossover to the strong coupling fixed point. This notion is able to account for the existing theoretical and numerical results.

“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.

"Universal scaling behavior is an attractive feature in statistical physics because a wide range of models can be classified purely in terms of their collective behavior due to a diverging correlation length. This book provides a comprehensive overview of dynamical universality classes occurring in nonequilibrium systems defined on regular lattices. The factors determining these diverse universality classes have yet to be fully understood, but the book attempts to summarize our present knowledge, taking them into account systematically." "The book helps the reader to navigate in the zoo of basic models and classes that were investigated in the past decades, using field theoretical formalism and topological diagrams of phase spaces. The extensions in this book include new topics like local scale invariance, tricritical points, phase space topologies, nonperturbative renormalization group results and disordered systems that are discussed in more detail. This book also aims to be more pedagogical, providing more background and derivation of results."--BOOK JACKET.

During a century, from the Van der Waals mean field description (1874) of gases to the introduction of renormalization group (RG techniques 1970), thermodynamics and statistical physics were just unable to account for the incredible universality which was observed in numerous critical phenomena. The great success of RG techniques is not only to solve perfectly this challenge of critical behaviour in thermal transitions but to introduce extremely useful tools in a wide field of daily situations where a system exhibits scale invariance. The introduction of scaling, scale invariance and universality concepts has been a significant turn in modern physics and more generally in natural sciences. Since then, a new "physics of scaling laws and critical exponents", rooted in scaling approaches, allows quantitative descriptions of numerous phenomena, ranging from phase transitions to earthquakes, polymer conformations, heartbeat rhythm, diffusion, interface growth and roughening, DNA sequence, dynamical systems, chaos and turbulence. The chapters are jointly written by an experimentalist and a theorist. This book aims at a pedagogical overview, offering to the students and researchers a thorough conceptual background and a simple account of a wide range of applications. It presents a complete tour of both the formal advances and experimental results associated with the notion of scaling, in physics, chemistry and biology.

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.

The NATO Advanced Study Institute on "Scale Invariance, Interfaces and Non Equilibrium Dynamics" was held at the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Cambridge, UK from 20-30 June 1994. The topics discussed at the Institute were all concerned with the origin and nature of complex structures found far from equilibrium. Examples ranged from reaction diffusion systems and hydrodynamics through to surface growth due to deposition. A common theme was that of scale invariance due to the self-similarity of the underly ing structures. The topics that were covered can be broadly classified as pattern for mation (theoretical, computational and experimental aspects), the non-equilibrium dynamics of the growth of interfaces and other manifolds, coarsening phenomena, generic scale invariance in driven systems and the concept of self-organized critical ity. The main feature of the Institute was the four one-hour-Iong lectures given each day by invited speakers. In addition to thirty-seven of these lectures, two contributed lectures were also given. The many questions that were asked after the lectures attested to the excitement and interest that the lecturers succeeded in generating amongst the students. In addition to the discussions initiated by lectures, an im portant component of the meeting were the poster sessions, where participants were able to present their own work, which took place on three of the afternoons. The list of titles given at the end of these proceedings gives some idea of the range and scope of these posters.

This book brings together two of the most exciting and widely studied subjects in modern physics: namely fractals and surfaces. To the community interested in the study of surfaces and interfaces, it brings the concept of fractals. To the community interested in the exciting field of fractals and their application, it demonstrates how these concepts may be used in the study of surfaces. The authors cover, in simple terms, the various methods and theories developed over the past ten years to study surface growth. They describe how one can use fractal concepts successfully to describe and predict the morphology resulting from various growth processes. Consequently, this book will appeal to physicists working in condensed matter physics and statistical mechanics, with an interest in fractals and their application. The first chapter of this important new text is available on the Cambridge Worldwide Web server: http://www.cup.cam.ac.uk/onlinepubs/Textbooks/textbookstop.html