This volume is the outcome of a three-day meeting held 7-10 August, 2004 in St Adèle,
Québec honouring Michael F Thorpe, Foundation Professor of Physics, Chemistry and
Biophysics at Arizona State University. Michael Thorpe has made many important
contributions to condensed matter physics, broadly defined. From the famous Weaire and
Thorpe Hamiltonian in 1971 [1] to rigidity percolation theory [2] and flexibility in
proteins [3], he has always provided highly original solutions to difficult problems. He
has also demonstrated an uncommon gift for selecting and solving problems of
remarkably broad significance (for example, rigidity theory is now a powerful tool in
glasses, microelectronics and proteins).
Throughout his career, Mike has also made a point of establishing contact with
scientists from all disciplines and origins, organizing tens of conferences and maintaining
a very active visitor's program both at Michigan State University, where he spent 25
years, and, now, at Arizona State University, where he moved a year ago.
It is therefore not surprising that the participants, all with scientific or personal links with
Mike, usually both, came from Europe, Asia and North America to celebrate the 60th
birthday of an eminent physicist and friend.
Reflecting the impact of Mike's work across the traditional scientific boundaries,
the meeting included contributions ranging from studies of concrete by Ed Garboczi
(NIST), a hybrid VCA/CPA treatment of the Hubbard model presented by Sir Roger
Elliott (Oxford) to the assembly process of viral capsids by Brandon Hespenheide (ASU).
Especially memorable talks were given by Rafael Barrio (with his photogenic striped
imperial fish), Alex Kolobov (presenting impressive scientific results using equally
impressive computer graphics), and Dick Zallen, for a remarkably good `roast' of the
honoree and work with his daughter (a molecular biologist) on biophysics.
The meeting had an unusual warmth befitting the birthday celebration, and was also by
any measure a scientific success, with innumerable questions and discussions among this
diverse group, and the scholarly contributions in this volume.
We thank the participants, and Dr Richard Palmer, the Publisher of Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter
and his staff for working to make this volume appear very quickly, thereby increasing the
value of the papers to the community. We would also thank the Office of the vice-president
for research at Université de Montréal, the Department of Physics and
Astronomy at Arizona State University, the Department of Physics and Astronomy at
Ohio University and the Canada Research Chair Program for financial assistance that
made the meeting more enjoyable.
We were both pleased to be part of this delightful occasion, and wish to take this last
opportunity to wish Mike a happy birthday, and urge him to even greater achievements in
coming years.
Bibliography
[1] Weaire D and Thorpe M F 1971 Electronic Properties of an Amorphous Solid: I. A
Simple Tight Binding Theory Phys. Rev. B 4 2508--20
[2] Thorpe M F 1983 Continuous Deformations in Random Networks J. Non-Cryst. Solids57 355-70
[3] Jacobs D J, Rader A J, Kuhn L A and Thorpe M F 2001 Protein Flexibilty
Predictions using Graph Theory Proteins44 150-65