The Telluride Summer Research Center was started in the summer of 1984 to provide an informal setting for people working in chemical physics and allied fields to gather in small groups to work intensively on specific areas of interest. The intent of the organizers was to establish an environment for definition and exploration of new questions, rather than a place for reporting completed work. The format was influenced very much by those of the Aspen Center for Physics and the Center for Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 1984, one workshop was held on Thermodynamic Length. In 1985, there were three workshops held on Phase Changes in Small Clusters, on Chaos: Intramolecular Dynamics and the Correspondence Principle,, and Geometrical Thermodynamics. During the summer of 1986 there will again be several workshops.
The topics for this workshop have been chosen as a result of informal discussions among several people working actively in the field now. Enough experiments have been done on reactions of clusters to give theorists a large class of problems to interpret, and enough theoretical "predictions" have been made regarding phase changes in clusters to provide experimentalists with several challenging new directions. Moreover, because of the high exothermicities of some reactions of clusters, phase changes may accompany cluster reactions in some cases. Whether clusters in different phases exhibit different reactions is apparently quite unknown. Well before the workshop begins, selected reprints and preprints will be circulated among the participants and a mail and telephone dialoque will generate a tentative agenda of the areas and specific topics that participants will explore. In Telluride, the workshop will follow the procedure of previous workshops so long as the participants wish; that is, each morning one previously designated person will present the basic ideas around which a particular new question centers, and discussion will evolve from there. In principle, afternoons are left open and evenings are usually used to work out ideas developed during the mornings. In practice, as concepts develop and participants get involved in particular problems, the afternoons are often taken up also with intense discussions.
The workshop on Phase Changes and Reactions in Microclusters is intended to bring together experimentalists and theorists currently active in this area for a three-week period. It is intended that about twelve-to-fifteen scientists be in residence in Telluride during each week and that the participating theorists spend long enough periods to define and build up momentum in investigating new questions. The experience of past participants at Telluride and at the Aspen Center for Physics has been that two weeks is not quite enough to do this and that three weeks is preferable.
Experimenters are also encouraged to spend as much of the three-week period as they can in Telluride, but the workshop is being organized with the realization that they may find it difficult to be away from their laboratories for so long a time. Not only senior scientists are invited to participate; younger scientists, including postdoctoral associates and graduate students nearing the end of their doctoral research are strongly encouraged to take part. Workshop in 1984 and 1985 were clearly enlivened by the participation of younger scientists and it is the intent that this style continue.
Workshops at the center are informal gatherings intended to advance the research on site as opposed to communicating findings. While the workshop will have a preselected list of doable and shareable problems, participants are strongly encouraged to add to the pool.
The formate is one formal talk per day with ample time for serious collaboration. As such it is recommended that stay be at least two weeks in duration. The Telluride locale offers ample outdoor attractions which make such stays enjoyable for families as well.
This workshop will overlap in time with the workshop on Simulated Annealing and with the workshop on Chaos in Molecular Vibrations. This overlap is deliberate. Furthermore, scientists who would like to work in the general environment of the Telluride Summer Research Center without being associated with any specific workshop are strongly encouraged to apply.
Paticipants are expected to provide their own transportation and living costs. The TSRC has thus far had no money from any government funding agency. Its principal support has come from the participants registration fees, which for 1986 will be $100 for each participant. The TSRC has been meeting at the Telluride School. Apart from desks and meeting rooms, the school provides a collection of microcomputers for computation as well as for word processing. Housing ranges from a youth hostel to luxurious condominiums and houses. Shared bachelor housing in rented homes has been very satisfactory in the past.
Participants List:
Bjarne Andresen, University of Denmark
Steve Berry, University of Chicago
Michael Davis, Argonne National Laboratory
Nelson De Leon, Yale University
Dieter Eichenauer, University of Waterloo
Greg Ezra, Cornell University
David Farrelly, UCLA
John Frederick, University of Washington
Larry Fried, Cornell University
Bill Harter, University of Arkansas
Daniel Huber, University of Washington
Charles Jaffe, West Virginia University
Julius Jellinek, Argonne National Laboratory
Kenneth Kay, Kansas State University
Mike Kellman, Northeastern University
Kevin Lehmann, Princeton University
Craig Martens, Cornell University
Steven Neshyba, Yale University
Jim Nulton, San Diego City College
Eric Parks, Argonne National Laboratory
Robert Parson, University of Washington
Jacob Morch Pedersen, University of Denmark
Jean Paul Pique, MIT
David Podber, University of Oregon
John Robinson, Burroughs Corportation
Henry Rohrs, University of Colorado
George Ruppeiner, New College Florida
Peter Salamon, San Diego State University
Ned Sinert, University of California Berkeley
Rex Skodje, University of Colorado
T. Uzer, Georgia Tech
Chen Yong-Q, MIT
Telluride School