The British Liquid Crystal Society Annual Winter Workshop

在过去的35年里，液晶的研究和开发一直非常重要，并且广泛的高科技产品已经产生了高质量的平板显示器，从手表和计算器、移动的电话和数码相机到膝上型计算机、桌面监视器和大面积彩色电视。这些产品彻底改变了我们的生活方式，并进行我们的日常活动的商业和休闲。在液晶领域的研究继续激烈，以改善知名的产品，并利用液晶材料的独特性质（其中分子具有液体的流动性但不完全无序的材料，这为流体提供了重要的光学特性，液晶研究人员的培训对于保持研究的良好进展和在未来交付预期的技术成果至关重要。由于液晶的研究领域是一个多学科交叉的领域，需要化学、物理、工程、数学、计算和生物学等领域的研究人员密切合作，因此这种培训具有特殊的挑战性。英国液晶学会年度冬季研讨会旨在为液晶研究领域的新科学家提供教育和培训需求。该讲习班有经验丰富的科学家参加，他们是各学科的专家。专家们通过讲座提供各科学学科的背景知识，并通过实验室实践介绍重要的实用技术，重要的是，他们在整个讲习班期间都可以与新的研究人员进行非正式讨论和建立一般性联系。年度研讨会对于在液晶的多学科和技术重要领域不断培养训练有素的科学家是非常宝贵的。

Research and development in liquid crystals has been highly significant over the past 35 years, and a wide range of high technology products has resulted in high quality, flat-panel displays from watches and calculators, mobile telephones, and digital cameras to lap-top computers, desk-top monitors and large-area colour televisions. These products have helped to completely revolutionize the way in which we all live and conduct our day to day activities of business and leisure.Research in the area of liquid crystals continues to be intense in order to improve the well-known products, and to use the unique nature of liquid crystal materials (materials where the molecules have the mobility of a liquid, yet are not completely disordered, which provides a fluid with the important optical, electronic and visco-elastic properties of solids) to generate novel applications for high technology products of the future.The training of researchers new to the field of liquid crystals is of paramount importance to maintaining the excellent progress of research, and the delivering of the desired technological achievements in the future. Such training presents particular challenges because the research area of liquid crystals is extremely multidisciplinary and necessarily involves the close collaboration of researchers from areas of chemistry, physics, engineering, mathematics, computation and biology.The British Liquid Crystal Society Annual Winter Workshop serves to provide the education and training needs for research scientists who are new to the field of liquid crystals research. The Workshop involves experienced scientists who are experts in their various disciplines. The experts deliver lectures to provide the background knowledge in the various scientific disciplines, they operate hands-on laboratory sessions to introduce the important practical techniques, and importantly they are available for the entire duration of the Workshop for informal discussions and general networking with the new researchers.Hence, the Annual Workshop is invaluable for the continuous generation of trained scientists in the multi-disciplinary and technologically important area of liquid crystals.