The British Liquid Crystal Society Annual Winter Workshop

在过去的35年里，液晶的研究和开发具有非常重要的意义，从手表和计算器、移动电话和数码相机到笔记本电脑、台式显示器和大面积彩色电视，各种高科技产品都产生了高质量的平板显示器。这些产品帮助彻底改变了我们所有人的生活方式和日常商业和休闲活动。液晶领域的研究继续紧张，以改进众所周知的产品，并利用液晶材料(分子具有液体的流动性但不完全无序的材料，其提供具有固体的重要光学、电子和粘弹性性质的流体)的独特性质来为未来的高科技产品产生新的应用。培训液晶领域的新研究人员对于保持研究的良好进展至关重要，以及在未来交付预期的技术成果。这种培训具有特殊的挑战性，因为液晶的研究领域是非常多学科的，必然涉及来自化学、物理、工程、数学、计算和生物领域的研究人员的密切合作。英国液晶学会年度冬季研讨会旨在为刚接触液晶研究领域的研究科学家提供教育和培训需求。讲习班有经验丰富的科学家参加，他们都是各自学科的专家。专家们举办讲座，提供不同科学学科的背景知识，他们开设动手实验室课程，介绍重要的实用技术，重要的是，他们在整个研讨会期间都可以与新的研究人员进行非正式讨论和一般网络联系。因此，年度研讨会对于在多学科和技术上重要的液晶领域不断培养训练有素的科学家来说是非常宝贵的。

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.