  Despite its amazing quantitative successes and contributions to revolutionary
technologies, physics currently faces many unsolved mysteries ranging from the
meaning of quantum mechanics to the nature of the dark energy that will
determine the future of the Universe. It is clearly prohibitive for the general
reader, and even the best informed physicists, to follow the vast number of
technical papers published in the thousands of specialized journals. For this
reason, we have asked the leading experts across many of the most important
areas of physics to summarise their global assessment of some of the most
important issues. In lieu of an extremely long abstract summarising the
contents, we invite the reader to look at the section headings and their
authors, and then to indulge in a feast of stimulating topics spanning the
current frontiers of fundamental physics from The Future of Physics by William
D Phillips and What characterises topological effects in physics? by Gerard t
Hooft through the contributions of the widest imaginable range of world leaders
in their respective areas. This paper is presented as a preface to exciting
developments by senior and young scientists in the years that lie ahead, and a
complement to the less authoritative popular accounts by journalists.
