Phase Transitions of Simple Systems

This monograph develops a unified microscopic basis for phases and phase changes of bulk matter and small systems in terms of classical physics. The origins of such phase changes are derived from simple but physically relevant models of how transitions between rigid crystalline, glassy and fluid states occur, how phase equilibria arise, and how bulk properties evolve from those of small systems.

R. Stephen Berry is James Franck Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in the Chemistry Department at The University of Chicago. He has studied phase changes and phase equilibria for twenty years. He is a MacArthur Fellow and a Member of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A., and has been author or coauthor of five books prior to this. He and his coauthor of this book have known each other for over 40 years, from the time both were working on atomic collision processes. They have been collaborating for about 10 years, in their studies of clusters and of phase transitions.

Boris M. Smirnov is a distinguished physicist who worked for many years at the Institute for Ball Lightning, prior to his joining the Institute for High Temperatures in Moscow.