Objective: To provide a forum in which theoretical methods for describing intrinsically large systems may be discussed and further challenged by experimental results of such systems. By intrinsically large, one means such systems which are highly coupled and thus not easily reducible to effectively one- or small-dimensional systems. That is, these systems involve many-body effects and complex motions which need to be described by massively collective degrees of freedom. The commonality in this community lies primarily in the use of statistical techniques and not on the applications. As such, this conference would discuss a wide range of experimental systems and would further the cross-pollination between the application-based fields.

Observed Need: This workshop would fill the following needs that are presently not served by other workshops or small conferences:

- The focus is to provide cross-fertilization of ideas and method between 4 selected focused areas in materials chemistry, rather than on theory development. (In this way, the proposed workshop would complement the condensed phase dynamics meeting which focuses heavily on theory development.)

- To include 2 to 4 experimentalists per focused area so as to provide perspective on the theoretical challenges that must still be addressed as well as the experiments that must still be carried out. That is, the workshop will emphasize the synergy between experimentalists and theorists to understand problems in materials chemistry.

- The targeted focused areas will share the common thread that they may be described primarily as intrinsically large and classical. (In this way, the problems should complement the nonadiabatic dynamics workshop wich is clearly non-classical.)

Planned Sessions: The meeting could have a several of sessions which would include at least sessions on: reacting polymers, protein folding, supercritical fluids, and glasses and amorphous materials