Preface

Welcome to Volume 5 of the ‘Chemical Modelling’ SPR. Naturally, I want to start by thanking my team of Reporters for the hard work they have put into making this the best and most comprehensive volume so far. We hope you will derive benefit and perhaps even pleasure from our efforts.

It seems a long time since I wrote the following in my Preface to Volume 1 (1999)…

‘Starting a new SPR is never easy, and there was the problem of where the contributors should start their accounts; since time began? five years ago? An SPR should be the first port of call for an up-to-the-minute account of trends in a specialist subject rather than a dull collection of references. My solution was to ask contributors to include enough historical perspective to bring a non-specialist up to speed, but to include all pertinent references through May 1999. Volume 2 will cover the literature from June 1999 to May 2001 and so on. In subsequent Volumes, I shall ask those Contributors dealing with the topics from Volume 1 to start from there. New topics will be given the same generous historical perspective opportunity as Volume 1 but will have to cover the literature to 2001 + n where n = 0, 2, 4, …. This process will continue until equilibrium is reached.’

Equilibrium was reached a couple of Volumes ago and some mature topics don’t need cover every Volume.

My final sentence for Volume 1 was

‘I am always willing to listen to convincing ideas for new topics’

as indeed I am.

Alan Hinchliffe

Manchester 2008

alan.hinchliffe@manchester.ac.uk