As the various disciplines of science advance, they proliferate and tend to become more esoteric. Barriers of specialized terminologies form, which cause scientists to lose contact with their colleagues, and differences in points-of-view emerge which hinder the unification of knowledge among the various disciplines, and even within a given discipline. As a result, the scientist, and especially the student, is in many instances offered fragmented glimpses of subjects that are funda- mentally synthetic and that should be treated in their own right. Such seems to be the case of the liquid state. Unlike the other states of matter -- gases, solids, and plasmas -- the liquid state has not yet received unified treatment, probably because it has been the least explored and remains the least understood state of matter. Occasionally, events occur which help remove some of the barriers that separate scientists and disciplines alike. Such an event was the ASI on The Liquid State held this past July at the lovely Hotel Tivoli Sintra, in the picturesque town of Sintra, Portugal, approximately 30 km northwest of Lisbon.
Since this broad a subject could not be covered in one Institute, the focus of the ASI was on a theme that provided a common thread of understanding for all in attendance -- the Electrical Proper- ties of the Liquid State.