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The 15th General Conference of the Condensed Matter Division of the European Physical Society took place in Baveno- Stresa (Lake Maggiore, Italy) from April 22 to 25, 1996. It was the 15th of a series that started in 1980 in Antwerp and whose last edition took place in Madrid in March 28–31, 1994.More than 800 scientists from 37 countries attended the Stresa Conference. Through the efforts of the Organizing Committee and the support of several national and international Agencies, a large participation of scientists from Eastern European Countries (more than 100) was attained. On the other hand the participants from outside Europe were 30.In such a frame, the Conference established itself as a scientific ground for a worldwide discussion of results in the field of condensed matter physics, in a way comparable to the March meeting of the American Physical Society.The structure of the Conference allowed for a relatively large number of invited speeches, which are collected into this special issue of Physica Scripta.The Conference was partitioned into six sessions (Semiconductors and Insulators, Magnetism and Metals, Superconductivity, Liquids and Statistical Mechanics, Polymers and Soft Matter, Surfaces and Interfaces), 14 Symposia and a Forum on Large Facilities. Two special Plenary Sessions were added to the customary structure of the Conference, namely: (i) Applied Physics, (ii) Science and Society, in order to emphasize the importance of Condensed Matter Physics for high-tech industrial applications and, more generally, for the development of our Society.In this special issue, the Articles derived from Plenary (11) and Invited (41) speeches are published in the order of the Sessions. The reference to a given Symposium is specified in the contents. |
