Special issue: Proceedings of the Joint 19th AIRAPT and 41st EHPRG International Conference on High Pressure Science and Technology (Bordeaux, 7--11 July 2003)

Abstract

During these last fifty years, high pressure science and technology have been the object of tremendous development in a variety of scientific areas, involving physics, geosciences, chemistry and biosciences. Pressure, as a basic thermodynamic variable, is commonly found in nature: from the centre of the Earth to the giant planets. Consequently the use of high pressures can be considered as an important tool for improving scientific knowledge and developing new processes.It was my pleasure to welcome to Bordeaux, during one week, more than 400 scientists representing approximately 30 different countries, as participants in the International Conference on High Pressure Science and Technology, joining the 19th AIRAPT and 41st EHPRG Meetings.I deeply thank all the institutions that supported this conference, as well as all the participants for the high scientific level of all their contributions. I would like to dedicate the proceedings to all the scientists who developed high pressure research in the past, and in particular I wish to thank Jacques Basset and Michel Contré for their scientific advice at the beginning of my research activity on high pressure.