The central theme of this book is ‘slow dynamics in supercooled, glassy liquids and dense colloidal systems’ which has been an intense area of current research for some time. Although it can be well described by the mode-coupling theory of dense liquids, controversial viewpoints persist. Thus, the authors have written about the exciting modern aspects of the physics of liquids by selecting only the most interesting contemporary development in this rich field of research in the last decades.

This book presents and summarises a wide variety of recent research on the physics of complex liquids and suggests that the use of established techniques, essentially neutron, X-ray and light scattering together with theoretical and computer molecular dynamic simulation approaches, can be fruitfully applied to solve many new phenomena. These techniques are also central to investigating new interesting findings in liquid water such as liquid–liquid transition and its associated low-temperature critical point.

Although many materials found in nature can be classed as complex fluids, the authors have chosen to focus on water and colloids in this book for the following reasons:

1. • Water is the most important liquid for life on Earth. It covers 71% of the Earth's surface and is probably the most ubiquitous, as well as the most essential, molecule on Earth. It is a vital element controlling not only all aspects of life itself but also the environmental factors that make life enjoyable. Water is a simple molecule yet possesses unique and anomalous properties at low temperatures that have fascinated scientists for many years. Thus in selecting the categories of complex liquids to include in this book, water is the obvious top choice.

2. • Colloids are another class of complex liquids characterised by the slowing down of the dynamics. They are becoming increasingly studied for their potential applications and the availability of degrees of freedom that are relatively simple to vary experimentally through physical and chemical control parameters, giving rise to a much larger variety of phenomena compared to simple liquids.