In February 1998, Marshall Space Flight Center’s Science Directorate hosted a Workshop/Training Conference which invited leading physicists to meet with Marshall researchers about the cutting-edge issues in the world of physics at the dawn of the new millennium. Seven lectures covered a variety of topics at the edge of knowledge.

The Science Directorate organized a follow-on conference to again bring together leading physicists to participate in a series of lectures on open issues in physics in 2005. The intended audience was wider and the number of participants greater than at the 1998 meeting but the range of topics was just as exciting. We brought together leaders in the fields who could discuss such topics as What is Gravity, Dark Matter and Energy, Neutrino Physics, Issues in Quantum Physics, String Theories and New Dimensions, Physics of High Energies and Temperatures, A Century of Relativity, Where Physics and Biology Meet, and others yet to be defined.

A major feature of this meeting was the addition of a significant education component to the meeting goals and venue. We brought the lecturers together with students and teachers with the hope of putting a human face to the world of physics.

This meeting was a World Year of Physics event. The World Year of Physics aims to bring the excitement of physics to the public and inspire a new generation of scientists. The World Year is timed to coincide with the centennial of Albert Einstein’s “miraculous year,” in which three of his most important papers were published.

For information about the World Year of Physics, visit http://www.physics2005.org/

Physics for the Third Millennium:II was held in the North Hall of the Von Braun Center in Huntsville, Alabama, April 5 through 7, 2005.

This conference was held in conjunction with the advanced Space Propulsion Workshop on April 7 and 8. See our ASPW page for details.