Rheology in Crete

          The 3^rd Annual European Rheology Conference (AERC) was held on the beautiful island of Crete for a three day period 27 – 29 April 2006.  Over four hundred delegates attended a very full programme with Plenary Lectures and five parallel sessions.  There was a reasonable UK presence of some thirty people with Professor Tom McLeish giving one of the Plenaries.  The meeting was opened by Professor John Brady talking about the way microparticle movement can be used to make viscoelastic measurements and there was also an encouragingly large number of experimental papers.  One highlight for this correspondent was nice work from the Nancy Rheology Group who developed a simple law for the ‘time to yield’ of a range of household foodstuffs.  During the conference there was an interim meeting of the International Congress of Rheology and they reported that so far, only Grenoble had applied for European 2012 slot.  An ESR meeting was also held where details for the 4^th ESR 2007 ( 12-14 April) meeting in Naples was discussed.  The ESR has formed a collaboration with Springer Publishing and ESR members can now enter the Springer Rheology Portal for 50 Euros/annum.

          The meeting was very well run by the Hellenic Society of Rheology and they are to be congratulated for maintaining the excellent standard that Annual ESR meetings have already reached. Professor Roland Kenning brought the meeting to an end with an excellent after dinner speech on the veranda of the Cretis Maris Hotel at Hersonossis  where The evening was a pleasant 20°C and the sea looked beautiful.  Rheology in Europe is currently in good shape!

Malcolm Mackley    May 2006