Presented in this volume is a collection of the Nobel Lectures delivered by the prize-winners, together with their biographies, portraits and the presentation speeches for the period 1991-1995. Each Nobel Lecture is based on the work that won the laureate his prize.
For discovering that methods developed for studying order phenomena in simple systems can be generalized to more complex forms of matter, in particular to liquid crystals and polymers, P-G de Gennes; for his invention and devlopment of particle detectors, in particular the multiwire proportional chamber, G. Charpak; for the discovery of a new type of pulsar, a discovery that has opened up new possibilities for the study of gravitation, R. A. Hulse and J-H Taylor JR; for pioneering contributions to the development of neutron scattering techniques for studies of condensed matter; for the development of neutron spectroscopy, B. N. Brockhouse; for the development of the neutron diffraction technique, C. G. Shull; for pioneering experimental contributions to lepton physics,; for the discovery of the tau lepton, M. L. Perl; for the detection of the neutrino, F. Reines.