Foreword

On the surface of the Earth planet, water is everywhere: very visible in oceans, rivers, rain or clouds, less visible in rocks or even in the body of living organisms. Being almost the only easily accessible natural liquid, many processes depend on its properties. No life would be possible without the presence of water in its three states. Moreover, its properties play a major role in seasonal cycles and in weather stability. From the largest scales of ocean currents till the molecular scale of biological reactions the singularity of water is evident. As a consequence, water is at the core of research in a large variety of scientific disciplines, as it is nicely presented in the first chapter of this book.

One may ask why, more than any other substance, is water so important and subject of a huge literature, given the apparent simplicity of both the chemical composition and shape of the molecules. The answer cannot be simple because, indeed, complexity comes from different origins, such as the local tetrahedral arrangement or the intermolecular hydrogen bonds and their fast dynamics.

The great merit of the presentation of J. B. Mandumpal is the gradual introduction of the main concepts of the physics of water, with a pedagogical approach based on experimental results and on computer simulations. The text encompasses essentially all the properties of water from the better known till the still controversial models of supercooled water and glass transition.

Given the amount of data available and the enormous number of research papers (more than 400 publication every day!), the content of the book constitutes a remarkable review of the state-of-the-art in water physics, which will be source of information and inspiration for graduate students, scientists and engineers.