Pavel Pieranski, University of Paris-Sud Abstract: My intention is to focus on a few selected topics that can be interesting also for non specialists. In particular, I would like to say some words about Mark Kac (one the glorious mathematicians from the Lviv School of Mathematics) and the issue of isospectral drum initiated by him. Presented at PSSM Workshop on Liquid Crystals and Colloidal Dispersions http://www.icmp.lviv.ua/statphys2009/pssm/index.html

Ivan Smalyukh discusses Applications of Liquid Crystals, and Yu Chen discusses Nonlinear Conversion Frequency-Based Blue-Green Lasers at the Inter-Continental Advanced Materials for Photonics (I-CAMP) Summer School in Qingdao, China, July 6, 2009. Learn about this event at: http://icamconferences.org/i-camp/ Learn more about the Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter (ICAM) at: http://www.icam-i2cam.org/ Read about future events here: http://icam-i2cam.org/index.php/events/

Ivan Smalyukh discusses Applications of Liquid Crystals at the Inter-Continental Advanced Materials for Photonics (I-CAMP) Summer School in Qingdao, China, July 6, 2009. Learn about this event at: http://icamconferences.org/i-camp/ Learn more about the Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter (ICAM) at: http://www.icam-i2cam.org/ Read about future events here: http://icam-i2cam.org/index.php/events/