This volume collects several in-depth articles giving lucid discussions on new developments in statistical and condensed matter physics. Many, though not all, contributors had been in touch with the late S-K Ma. Written by some of the world's experts and originators of new ideas in the field, this book is a must for all researchers in theoretical physics. Most of the articles should be accessible to diligent graduate students and experienced readers will gain from the wealth of materials contained herein.

This volume collects several in-depth articles giving lucid discussions on new developments in statistical and condensed matter physics. Many, though not all, contributors had been in touch with the late S-K Ma. Written by some of the world's experts and originators of new ideas in the field, this book is a must for all researchers in theoretical physics. Most of the articles should be accessible to diligent graduate students and experienced readers will gain from the wealth of materials contained herein.

Quasicrystals: The State of the Art has proven to be a useful introduction to quasicrystals for mathematicians, physicists, materials scientists, and students. The original intent was for the book to be a progress report on recent developments in the field. However, the authors took care to adopt a broad, pedagogical approach focusing on points of lasting value. Many subtle and beautiful aspects of quasicrystals are explained in this book (and nowhere else) in a way that is useful for both the expert and the student.In this second edition, some authors have appended short notes updating their essays. Two new chapters have been added. Chapter 16, by Goldman and Thiel, reviews the experimental progress since the first edition (1991) in making quasicrystals, determining their structure, and finding applications. In Chapter 17, Steinhardt discusses the quasi-unit cell picture, a promising, new approach for describing the structure and growth of quasicrystals in terms of a single, repeating, overlapping cluster of atoms.

This book introduces the latest visual effects (VFX) techniques that can be applied to game programming. The usefulness of the physicality-based VFX techniques, such as water, fire, smoke, and wind, has been proven through active involvement and utilization in movies and images. However, they have yet to be extensively applied in the game industry, due to the high technical barriers. Readers of this book can learn not only the theories about the latest VFX techniques, but also the methodology of game programming, step by step. The practical VFX processing techniques introduced in this book will provide very helpful information to game programmers. Due to the lack of instructional books about VFX-related game programming, the demand for knowledge regarding these high-tech VFXs might be very high.

This book reviews principal topical issues on the basic science of glasses and amorphous thin-films. It also includes select applications of these materials in current and evolving technologies, including optical recording, imaging, solar cells, battery technology and field-emission displays. The glass systems of interest include oxides, chalcogenides and chalcohalides of the group III, IV and V elements, as well as amorphous thin-films of the group IV elements. Glass formation in covalent melts can be understood in terms of new ideas based on constraint counting algorithms which have led to the fragile-strong classification and to the concept of rigidity transition. Vibrational excitations and characterization of the atomic scale structure at various length scales are addressed by an array of experimental probes, including X-ray and neutron scattering, Brillouin scattering, Raman scattering and infrared reflectance, solid state nuclear magnetic resonance, nuclear quadrupole resonance and Mössbauer spectroscopy. Chapters are also devoted to the physics of electronic transport in amorphous materials, to the physics of tunneling states in crystalline and amorphous solids, and the physics of light-induced effects in glasses. In addition, a chapter is devoted to the rapidly evolving field of numerical simulations of disordered systems by computer modeling. Each of these topics is discussed by experts who have made significant contributions to the field. The book can serve as a text for a graduate course in glass science. For an established researcher, it provides, in a concise form, a large body of experimental data on the basic materials research aspect of these fascinating materials. Contents:Glass Formation and the Nature of the Glass Transition (C A Angell)Dual Nature of Molecular Glass Transitions (J C Phillips)The Generic Phenomenology of Glass Formation (I Gutzow)The Structure and Rigidity of Network Glasses (M F Thorpe et al.)Glass Structure by Scattering Methods and Spectroscopy:X-Ray and Neutron Diffraction (A C Wright)Mössbauer Spectroscopy (P Boolchand)Nuclear Quadrupole Resonance (NQR) Studies of Glass Structure (P J Bray)Solid State NMR as a Structural Tool in Glass Science (H Eckert)Vibrational Excitations in Glasses:Inelastic Neutron Scattering (R L Cappelletti)Rigidity Transition and Lamb-Mössbauer Factors (P Boolchand)Raman Scattering (K Murase)Low Frequency Vibrational Excitations in Glasses by Brillouin and Raman Scattering (C Levelut)Tunneling Systems in Crystalline and Amorphous Solids (S Hunklinger & C Enss)Electronic Transport in Disordered Semiconductors (H Overhoff & P Thomas)Molecular Dynamic Simulations of Network Glasses (D A Drabold)Light-Induced Structural Changes in Glasses (H Fritzsche)Chalcohalide Glasses (J Lucas)Applications of Non-Crystalline Materials:Applications of Glasses, Amorphous and Disordered Materials (S Ovshinsky)Amorphous Chalcogenide Photoconductors in Imaging Technologies (S O Kasap & J A Rowlands)Real Time Optical Recording on Thin Films of Amorphous Semiconductors (M Mitkova) Diamond Based Field Emission Displays (J E Jaskie) Readership: Physicists, materials scientists, ceramists, chemists, electrical engineers, and mathematicians working with numerical and computational methods who have an interest in glass science. Keywords:Glass Transition;Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Spectroscopy;Raman Scattering;Mossbauer Spectroscopy;Molecular Dynamic Simulations;Optical Recording;Brillouin Scattering;Intermediate Phases;Modulated Differential Scanning Calorimetry;Neutron Scattering