Bulletin Number Four 1984

International Summer School on High Modulus Polymers and Composites The Second International Summer School o f Physics, organized by the Physics Department, was held at the University on 16th-26th July. This year's theme was 'High Modulus Polymers and Composites', an area o f material science which is o f great importance both in industry and everyday life. Material science and technology have played a prominent role in human civilization. The discovery and the subsequent applications o f a new class o f materials were often the highest technical achievement o f that generation, signifying the advent o f a new era. The making o f tools from stones was the earmark o f the Paleolithic age whereas one o f the most important achievements in the Neolithic age was the discovery o f the first man-made material —ceramic. Similarly, the Bronze and Iron ages were also named after the materials that characterized them. Synthetic polymer is a material which was first produced in the beginning o f this century but was widely used only after the Second World War. It has many valuable properties such as flexib ility and ease o f processing, but the major disadvantage is its low stiffness. Consequently, considerable effort has been made to improve the mechanical performance by producing chain orientation in polymers, or by blending them w ith s tiff materials such as glass or carbon fibres. In the latter process two components are combined to form a composite material which has the favourable properties o f both components. This blending technique has long been employed in China to produce artistic objects such as lacquer wares. In modem times, composite materials are widely used in automobile, shipbuilding and aerospace industries. In the past fifteen years, members o f the Physics Department have done substantial work in the field o f high modulus polymers and composites, most o f which has won international recognition. Numerous papers have been published in research journals. The invited lecturers for this Summer School were Professor Roger S. Porter, Co-Director o f Materials Research Laboratory, University o f Massachusetts, U.S.A.; Dr. Motowo Takayanagi, Professor o f Industrial Chemistry, Kyushu Sanyo University, Japan; Dr. James Economy, Manager o f Organic and Polymer Research, SanJose IBM Research Laboratory, U.S.A.; and Professor Bryan Harris, Head o f School o f Materials Science, University o f Bath, U.K. There were more than seventy participants from Hong Kong, China and other Asian countries, and many o f them presented papers on their research. Many participants emphasized that they had benefited greatly from the Summer School. In an interview w ith a local newspaper, the Director o f the Institute o f Chemistry o f the Academia Sinica, Professor R.Y. Qian ， said, 'This is indeed a very rewarding meeting, enabling us to meet many o f our counterparts, particularly those from Asian countries.' He also suggested that China should set up a grant for scholars to participate in similar events abroad. The Summer School also arranged a visit to the research laboratories o f this University. The partici pants were deeply impressed and many o f them spent their spare time learning the details o f the techniques and equipments in the hope that the information might be useful in their own laboratories. From the favourable comments o f the partici pants, it was felt that the Summer School had been quite successful in promoting the development o f science and technology in Asia. The University is grateful for the generous support from the Croucher Foundation, UNESCO, Shell Company (Hong Kong), IBM (Hong Kong), Dow Chemical (Asia Pacific) and Ciba-Geigy (Hong Kong), which made this event possible. - C.L. Choy NEWS 1