Background

The advances in the science of microparticles that have occurred in the last three decades of the 20th Century involve a number of analytical and experimental tools. Theoretical analysis of the relevant phenomena and processes has been greatly aided by high-speed computers, which make it possible to perform extensive computations associated with light-scattering theory and to carry out numerical solutions of heat, mass and momentum transport problems. Advances in the solution of the Boltzmann equation have improved our understanding of transport in the transition regime between the continuum and free-molecule regimes. The experimental tools include: (i) elastic, quasi-elastic and inelastic light scattering techniques, (ii) instrumentation for isolating individual particles or trains of particles, (iii) spectroscopic methods for the chemical analysis of small amounts of matter, (iv) laser illumination, (v) efficient detectors, and (vi) high-speed data acquisition and data processing. The important interplay between theory and experiment is the subject of this book.