Internal Kinematics and Dynamics of Galaxies

It was particulary appropriate that the IAU Symposium N° 100 be held in Besan~on in 1982 (August 9-13), since this coincided with the 100th anniversary of the Observatoire de Besan~on. The meeting was held on the campus of the Universite de Franche-Comte and was sponsored by IAU commission 28 and co-sponsored by commissions 33 and 40. It was organized under the auspices of the Ministere de l'Education Nationale, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and the Institut National d'Astronomie et de Geophysique. It was attended by 166 scien­ tists from 22 countries. The subject of the symposium was internal kinematics and dynamics of galaxies and it was aimed to confront recent theoretical developments in this field with the wealth of new observational mate­ rial obtained during the last few years. Barred galaxies and spiral structure were two major topics, though unfortunately at the last minute the main proponent of one of the spiral formation theories was unable to attend. The program included 23 reviews, 53 contributions and 39 poster papers, and there was ample time for discussion.