Introduction trends in dielectric research during 1959

Students of dielectrics are displaying increasing courage in attacking more and more complex insulating systems. This has resulted in increasing rapport between scientists and engineers; it has, furthermore, led to a broadening of the scientific base to include chemists, ceramists, biologists, mathematicians, and physicists while electrical engineers have been joined by mechanical and metallurgical ones. Publications report increasingly complex relationships between the electrical and mechanical properties of materials, the functional evaluation of systems and the characteristics of polycomponent insulants.