This special issue of Journal of Physics: Condensed Mattercontains the Proceedings of the Fourth Liquid Matter Conference held in Granada, Spain, 3 - 7 July 1999. Like the previous conferences held in Lyon (1990), Firenze (1993) and Norwich (1996), this event was organized under the auspices of the Liquids Section of the Condensed Matter Division of the European Physical Society and was co-sponsored by the University of Granada. The common aim of the series of Liquid Matter Conferences is to bring together every three years scientists from varied disciplines - physicists, chemists and biologists - who are working in the different areas of liquid matter science and thus to provide a forum for the exchange of the most recent ideas, technical developments and results. This special issue contains many of the papers presented orally at the conference as plenary or symposium lectures. Several papers based on poster contributions will appear in a forthcoming issue of the journal.
The Granada conference was attended by 669 delegates from 46 countries: 529 from Europe, 74 from America, 55 from Asia, 9 from Australia and 2 from Africa. The scientific program consisted of 12 plenary lectures, 81 symposium talks and four poster sessions in which 582 posters were presented. The 12 plenary lectures were chosen to cover a broad spectrum of activities and to follow the most recent developments in this scientific area. Thus, in addition to topics common to the previous conferences such as simple liquids, phase transitions or colloidal systems, the International Program Committee chose some new topics; for example, membranes and biological liquids, and the rheological properties of liquids.
Many new and important results were presented both in the lectures and in the poster sessions. Rather than simply highlighting these, we would like to convey some of the other positive aspects of the conference. The presence of a large number of young delegates; the increasing participation of scientists from different backgrounds to the traditional ones of physics and chemistry and of delegates coming from outside academia; the lively discussions, in particular those at the poster sessions, gave an optimistic view of a field that is growing and changing in many and different ways. Experimental, theoretical and computational techniques first developed for simpler fluids are becoming increasingly relevant for the more complex fluids while at the same time different areas of soft matter offer new and challenging problems to the community at large.
Thus the location of the conference in the beautiful town of Granada cannot be the only explanation for the very large attendance at this conference and this is a good omen for the Fifth Conference which is to be held in Konstanz, Germany, in September 2002. It is a great pleasure to acknowledge the local organizers for the wonderful work they did to make the conference run very smoothly and which made it an enjoyable experience. The generous support of the sponsors listed overleaf was essential for the running of the conference and is gratefully acknowledged.
Pedro Tarazona, Conference Chairman
Luciano Reatto, Chairman of the International Program Committee
Roque Hidalgo-Alvarez, Chairman of the Local Organizing Committee
Sponsors:
Ayuntamiento de Granada
Caja General de Ahorros de Granada
Cámara de Comercio Industria y Navegación
Cervezas Alhambra
Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología
EDP Sciences
European Physical Society
Genesys
Iberia Lineas Aéreas de España
Institute of Physics (IOP) Publishing Ltd
Junta de Andalucía
Ministerio de Educación y Cultura
Optilas Ibérica
OWIS GMBH
Repsol
Royal Society of Chemistry
Unicaja
Universidad de Granada