Book excerpt: Scientific Visualization of Physical Phenomena reflects the special emphasis of the Computer Graphics Society's Ninth International Conference, held at the MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA in June, 1991. This volume contains the proceedings of the conference, which, since its foundation in 1983, continues to attract high quality research articles in all aspects of Computer Graphics and its applications. Visualization in science and engineering is rapidly developing into a vital area because of its potential for significantly contributing to the understanding of physical processes and the design automation of man-made systems. With the increasing emphasis in handling complicated physical and artificial processes and systems and with continuing advances in specialized graphics hardware and processing software and algorithms, visualization is expected to play an increasingly dominant role in the foreseeable future.