A. W. Czanderna - Böcker

Many books are available that detail the basic principles of the different methods of surface characterization. On the other hand, the scientific literature provides a resource of how individual pieces of research are conducted by particular labo- tories. Between these two extremes the literature is thin but it is here that the present volume comfortably sits. Both the newcomer and the more mature scientist will find in these chapters a wealth of detail as well as advice and general guidance of the principal phenomena relevant to the study of real samples. In the analysis of samples, practical analysts have fairly simple models of how everything works. Superimposed on this ideal world is an understanding of how the parameters of the measurement method, the instrumentation, and the char- teristics of the sample distort this ideal world into something less precise, less controlled, and less understood. The guidance given in these chapters allows the scientist to understand how to obtain the most precise and understood measu- ments that are currently possible and, where there are inevitable problems, to have clear guidance as the extent of the problem and its likely behavior.

This volume contains the proceedings of the Eighth Conference on Vacuum Microbalance Techniques held at Wakefield, Massachusetts on June 12 and 13, 1969. The tenth anniversary of the first confer­ ence will be registered as this volume passes through the typeset­ ting and proofreading stages. The eight volumes that have spawned from this continuing series of conferences now contain a total of 125 papers. Thus, these volumes serve as a major repository of the world's literature on vacuum microbalance techniques. The Ninth and Tenth Conferences will be held in West Germany in June 1970 and in Texas in 1971. Each of the eight meetings has served as a forum where new developments in this rapidly advancing field can be presented and discussed constructively within a conference atmosphere of cordial informality. The interaction of the participants at the conferences has led to the first treatise on ultra mlcrogravtmetry;' edited by S. P. Wolsky and E. J. Zdanuk, with most of the fourteen chapters written by steady contributors to the volumes on Vacuum Micro­ balance Techniques. The number of research investigations and published works in which a vacuum microbalance is utilized con­ tinues to expandr apldly. f This is a direct result of several types of automatic recording balances that are now available commercial­ ly. 3 The Eighth Conference was held to bring together again re­ search scientists and engineers who exploit the measurement of mass as a means of studying physical and chemical phenomena.