Metallic liquids usually crystallize when subjected to the same cooling treatments that are employed to produce familiar nonmetallic glasses. By drastic quenching methods such as vapor condensation, electro deposition, chemical deposition, and rapid liquid quenching, however, a noncrystalline structure can be retained for many metals and alloys. A number of amorphous alloys were prepared by vapor quenching or electrodeposition in the 1950s, while the first glassy metal obtained by quenching from a melt was reported by Klement, Willens & Duwez in 1960 (1). Since the publication of their paper on glassy Au-Si alloys, many original articles on the structure, electrical and magnetic properties, and thermodynamic characterization of noncrystalline metals have appeared (2-4). Since the development of continuous fabrication of uniform glassy ribbons (5) and the subsequent discovery of technically interesting pro perties such as high strength (6-9), soft magnetic behavior (10-12), and excellent corrosion resistance (1 3), glassy metals have drawn further attention from the materials science community and are currently the focus of intense technological and fundamental studies. Glassy metals may be regarded as liquids whose structure has been frozen. They are isotropic in the range � 20 A, and thus constitute ideal materials for low temperature transport and critical behavior studies as well as the study of electrons in the noncrystalline state. During recent years, new efforts directed toward basic understanding of the physical properties of glassy metals, as well as further exploration of technically important mechanical, magnetic, and chemical properties and glass forming systems, have been made. Extensive collections of papers on glassy metals may be found in the Proceedings oJthe Second International