Résumé
In this introductory chapter, we outline the scientific scope of soft condensed matter in Section 1, then summarize thefundamental ideas of scattering experiments in Section 2, before finally putting each chapter in the context of the scienceand the technique(s) of scattering, in Section 3.Obviously, choices had to be made when defining the book concept, which is based on the structure of the Bombannessummer school lectures since 1990. As one can go more in detail in a chapter than in a lecture, the book is necessarilymore ambitious than the lectures themselves, but it still follows to a large extent the timetable of the summer school. Onthe other hand, the school is subjected to constraints, in particular of limited time, and also in budget and available teachers,leading naturally to a restriction of the topics treated in the school, and thus in the book. For those who regret that oneor the other topic or technique is not treated as profoundly as it should have been, we can only refer to the many other excellenttextbooks in the field; see references at the end of this chapter [1–16].