There have been considerable advances in recent times in understanding many common material processes that are of practical importance, such as nonlinear response, fracture, breakdown, earthquakes, packing, and granular flow, that are of immense practical importance. This has been mainly due to new applications of statistical physics, including percolation theory, fractal concepts and self-organized criticality. This collection of articles brings together research in those closely allied fields. It deals with problems in material science involving random geometries and nonlinearity at a...

Kenny has just bought a time machine at a yard sale. After conducting some initial tests to verify that he actually purchased the ability to travel through time for just two dollars, he sets out to fix his past and prevent himself from becoming a single, recently unemployed loser. But upon arriving on his eighteenth birthday, he meets another time-traveling version of himself. And another...and then another. Some of his clones seem to have less than admirable ambitions, but there are so many of him running around that Kenny can't keep track of who is who and, more importantly, which of his...

Tired of constantly pretending to be the perfect Mormon teenager, Jacob Crompton devises a plan to guide his fellow priests into an underground regimen of experimental sin. As they begin to dabble in behavior which is forbidden by the rules of their religion, the risks of their endeavors increase and their fears of discovery grow. The boys' conspiracy soon threatens to careen off the rails to bring public humiliation and ecclesiastical condemnation down on them, forcing each young man to examine his loyalties, address his priorities, and ultimately confront his true beliefs.