Today's Problems and Tomorrow's Solutions: Challenging Our Needs in Tribology Research

Tribology - the study of friction, wear & lubrication - impinges on almost every aspect of our daily lives. It is the underpinning science and technology which allows motion of any kind to occur often with the least energy loss, with controlled friction and with predictable wear lifetimes. Thus, whether using the smallest IT storage devices, travelling, generating power and transmitting motion, relying on brakes, being dependent on prosthetic joints or expecting dependability in large scale engineering structures, we constantly experience the enablement - and sometimes the limitations - of tribology. As unsung as its critical underlying influence may currently seem, today's challenges for Tribology are just as great as during the industrial revolution or during the 19th and 20th Centuries. Indeed, Tribology has the potential to impact positively on all aspects of our health, wealth and quality of life including how we generate and conserve energy and improving the mobility of our disabled or elderly citizens.

The 2004 Tribology Gordon Research Conference, true to the spirit of "Frontiers of Science", will identify the most important problems in this interdisciplinary field and explore the most powerful methods for solving them. It will do so by choosing the best speakers, topics and discussion leaders; by balancing lectures with ample discussion time; by promoting person-to-person interactions with both stimulating interactive poster sessions and informal tutorials. It will involve leading research scientists, practicing engineers with topical concerns and young scientists at the beginning of their careers.

It has long been recognised that Tribology is an interdisciplinary area not only spanning science, engineering and technology but bridging disciplines such as physics, chemistry, mechanical engineering, materials engineering and social sciences (where we need to address the social, legal and economic issues involved with either technological change or technology insertion). The immediately previous Gordon Conferences in Tribology - "Bridging the Gap" (2000) & "Paths of Least Resistance" (2002) - successfully addressed the challenges of understanding Tribology across material types, across these different disciplines and across widely differing length scales (e.g. from the atomistics of surface responses to contact stresses, to the macroscopic behaviour of earth-quakes).

The focus for GRC 2004 is going to be somewhat different but equally challenging. Following the theme that today's Frontiers and Challenges in Science are defining the questions that will address and solve tomorrow's problems, the theme for 2004 will be "Today's Problems & Tomorrow's Solutions: Challenging Our Needs in Tribology Research"! Thus, besides debating the frontiers of current academic research, GRC Tribology 2004 will explore how our current understanding of Tribology, together with emergent experimental and modelling techniques, might solve the problems posed by tomorrow's applications; together with the intriguing converse question as to how the perceived demands of tomorrow's innovative devices and applications can reveal "the blank squares" in our current understandings and research capabilities. Thus, most sessions will combine one or more speakers with a strong forward-looking applications perspective together with current experts in more academic but emergent research. The resultant debate at this interface is long overdue and promises to provide a most stimulating conference.