Named in honor of Roman Smoluchowski, solid state physicist and planetary astronomer. A native of Austria, Smoluchowski became head of the physics and metals sections of the Warsaw Institute of Technology. In 1940 he was able to reach the U.S., where he did research with the General Electric Company, the Carnegie Institute of Technology and as professor of solid state physics and director of the solid-state laboratory at Princeton University. Retiring in 1978 from Princeton, he moved to the University of Texas at Austin and continued his work on solids in astrophysics. During his long career Smoluchowski has served on or headed a large number of commissions, particularly those of the National Research Council and the Space Science Board concerning physical sciences, solids and magnetism. For the past several decades he has been one of the founders and primary developers of the field of the solid state behavior of matter in... _ _.