  Two properties of a dynamical system, rigidity and non-recurrence, are
examined in detail. The ultimate aim is to characterize the sequences along
which these properties do or do not occur for different classes of
transformations. The main focus in this article is to characterize explicitly
the structural properties of sequences which can be rigidity sequences or
non-recurrent sequences for some weakly mixing dynamical system. For ergodic
transformations generally and for weakly mixing transformations in particular
there are both parallels and distinctions between the class of rigid sequences
and the class of non-recurrent sequences. A variety of classes of sequences
with various properties are considered showing the complicated and rich
structure of rigid and non-recurrent sequences.
