  In 1864,Waage and Guldberg formulated the "law of mass action." Since that
time, chemists, chemical engineers, physicists and mathematicians have amassed
a great deal of knowledge on the topic. In our view, sufficient understanding
has been acquired to warrant a formal mathematical consolidation. A major goal
of this consolidation is to solidify the mathematical foundations of mass
action chemistry -- to provide precise definitions, elucidate what can now be
proved, and indicate what is only conjectured. In addition, we believe that the
law of mass action is of intrinsic mathematical interest and should be made
available in a form that might transcend its application to chemistry alone. We
present the law of mass action in the context of a dynamical theory of sets of
binomials over the complex numbers.
