This IMA Volume in Mathematics and its Applications QUASICLASSICAL METHODS is based on the proceedings of a very successful one-week workshop with the same title, which was an integral part of the 1994-1995 IMA program on "Waves and Scattering." We would like to thank Jeffrey Rauch and Barry Simon for their excellent work as organizers of the meeting. We also take this opportunity to thank the National Science Foun dation (NSF), the Army Research Office (ARO) and the Office of Naval Research (ONR), whose financial support made the workshop possible. A vner Friedman Robert Gulliver v PREFACE...

This is both promo text and back cover copy. This volume combines the discussions of two workshops: one devoted to wavelets, multigrid and other fast algorithms (multipole, FFT) and their use in wave propagation, and another devoted to waves in random and other complex media. The majority of the chapters deal with the effects of inhomogeneities of wave propagation both theoretically and computationally. They include topics such as waves in random media, coherent effects in scattering for random systems with discrete spectrum, interaction of microwaves with sea ice, scattering in magnetic...

Activity in any theoretical area is usually stimulated by new experimental techniques and the resulting opportunity of measuring phenomena that were previously inaccessible. Such has been the case in the area under consideration he re beginning about fifteen years aga when the possibility of studying chemical reactions in crossed molecular beams captured the imagination of physical chemists, for one could imagine investigating chemical kinetics at the same level of molecular detail that had previously been possible only in spectroscopic investigations of molecular stucture. This created an...