Molecular reaction dynamics unfolds the history of change on the molecular level. It asks what happens on the atomic length and time scales as the chemical change occurs. This book is an introduction to the field.

Molecular reaction dynamics has become an integral part of modern chemistry and is set to become a cornerstone for much of the natural sciences. This is because we need a common meeting ground extending from nanoscale solid state devices through material and interface chemistry and energy sciences to astrochemistry, drug design, and protein mechanics. For some time now the quantitative understanding on the molecular level has provided this common ground. At first, the scaffolding was the concept of the molecular structure. Once we understood the spatial organization we felt that we had an entry to real understanding. The required input was provided by the different experimental methods for structure determination and, from the theory side, by quantum chemistry and by equilibrium statistical mechanics. But now we want more: not just the static structure, we also ask how this structure can evolve in time and what we can do to control this evolution. We want to write the history of the change or, better yet, to be a conductor and orchestrate the motion. This is what this book is about.

In going from statics to dynamics we need new experimental tools and also theoretical machinery that allows for the dependence on time.