At the beginning of my career, I encountered a book that Professor Von Hippel edited. In the Preface to that book he wrote the following: “Many foresee that science and industry are building a Tower of Babel and thai this undertaking will be halted as in Biblical times: the laborers, more and more specialized, will finally cease to understand each other. The editor, for one, does not share this is gloomy conviction. On the contrary, as our knowledge grows, old boundaries vanish and the view expands to broader horizons. However, people accustomed to boundaries in certain places tend still to respect them after their actual disappearance. To make them feel at home with their new neighbors is a driving motive of this book and its companion volume.”

The Materials Research Society, being dedicated to interdisciplinariness, has shared Prof. Von Hippel's optimism, and I hope that in this lecture I can give you a small inkling of how interdisciplinary our current research is and how many different fields it touches.

The work that I am going to discuss resulted from the rapid solidification study of aluminum transition metal alloys. One day more than three years ago. Prof. Shechtman, who is the hero of this investigation, came into my office with an electron diffraction picture with ten spots arrayed about the central spots (Figure 1).

The 1986 MRS Fall Meeting will feature 22 symposia spanning developments in semiconductors, ceramics, polymers, nuclear waste management, cements, fly ash and coal conversion, optical fiber materials, fractals, and alloys. Contributed oral and poster papers are currently being sought to round out the program. The following synopses describe the scope and focus of each symposium. For further information on topical content, and preparation of abstracts, contact one of the symposium chairs for the particular symposium of interest to you. See the January/February issue of the MRS BULLETIN for further information on the meeting, and look for the complete Call for Papers brochure in the mail.

Many of the symposia will publish proceedings or extended abstract volumes. Ask the symposium chairabout publication plans for his/her symposium.

This symposium is devoted to fundamental aspects of beam-solid interactions, beam-induced crystal growth and other transient processes in materials, including semiconductors, metals, ceramics, and polymers. The symposium provides an interdisciplinary forum for scientists engaged in research on the interaction of photon, ion, and electron beams with solids, the thermodynamics and kinetics of rapid phase transformations between metastable and stable states induced by such interactions, and novel applications of these processes.