E. Tosatti - Böcker

The study of sliding friction is one of the oldest problems in physics, and certainly one of the most important from a practical point of view. It has been estimated that about 5 per cent of the gross national product in the developed countries is "wasted" on friction and related wear. The topic of interfacial sliding has experienced a major burst of interest and activity since 1987, much of which has developed quite independently and spontaneously. This volume contains contributions on fundamental aspects of sliding friction. Some of the problems considered are: What is the origin of stick-and-slip motion? What is the origin of the rapid processes taking place within a lubrication layer at slow sliding velocities? On a metallic surface, is the electronic or phononic friction the dominant energy dissipation process? What is the role (if any) of self-organized criticality in sliding friction? How thick is the water layer during sliding on ice and snow? These and other questions are of course only partly answered: the topic of sliding friction is still in an early state of development.

When an area of research is in fast growth, it often happens that no one single journal is to be found where most of the relevant publications are contained. Such is the case of the physics of intercalation compounds, a field which, by sitting at a corner point between materials science, solid­ state physics, and chemistry, finds its contributions largely scattered about in the literature. Given these circumstances it is of crucial interest to find a place where the most recent contributions and up-to-date referen­ ces can be found at once. For intercalated graphite and other similar com­ pounds this role has been played so far by proceedings of international con­ ferences, such as La Napoule (1977), Nijmegen (1979), Provincetown (1980), and Sendai (1980). The present book is an ideal continuation of this series, as it contains most of the invited and contributed papers of the Trieste International Con­ ference on the Physics of Intercalation Compounds, held in Trieste, Italy during the week 6-10 July 1981. The main emphasis is on intercalated graphite, though several interesting contributions deal with other materials, such as polyacetylene and transition­ metal compounds, or with general problems, such as two-dimensional melting. The book is divided into six sections-Structure and General Properties, Electronic Porperties, Stability and Phonons, Ordering and Phase Transitions, Magnetic Resonance, and Transport Properties-reflecting the main areas of interest, and also broadly the main discussion sessions of the Conference.