The title of this series, Mathematical Chemistry, was chosen to reflect as accurately as possible the proposed contents. The term ‘mathematical chemistry’ was coined in the early 1980s to designate the field that concerns itself with the novel and nontrivial application of mathematics to chemistry. Following the usual practice in this area, we shall interpret chemistry very broadly to include not only the traditional disciplines of inorganic, organic and physical chemistry but also their hybrid offspring such as chemical physics and biochemistry. It is anticipated that each of the volumes in our series will contain five to six separate chapters, each of which will be authored by a leading expert in the respective field.