Charles Darwin wrote in a letter to a friend ‘I have long since discovered that geologists never read each other's works, and that the only object in writing a book is proof of earnestness, and that you do not form your opinions without undergoing labour of some kind’ (Darwin, 1887).

An author has to justify the addition of yet another volume to the overflowing shelves of academic libraries. There are, after all, a number of excellent books on chemical kinetics (for instance Moore & Pearson, 1981) and more than enough books on enzyme kinetics, even if mainly on steady states. However the kinetic treatment of other physiological systems is quite dispersed. The present volume is intended to cross fertilize ideas between different kinetic approaches. It is to be hoped that enzymologists and those working on muscle contraction or visual response at the molecular level will be inspired by the potential of methods not previously applied in their own field, even if some of them receive only scant attention. It is, of course, inevitable that in attempting to cover a wide range of systems and approaches, I shall write with more authority and in greater detail on some compared to others.

Communication between those interested in the use of kinetics for the study of different biological problems is too limited. On the one hand, the terminology of enzymology, such as the use and interpretation of Michaelis constants, has been adopted, warts and all, without modern input, by authors on membrane transport, neuroreceptors and signal transmission.