The United Nations’ General Assembly has declared 2005 as the World Year of Physics in celebration of the centenary of Albert Einstein’s marvelous year, when he published a series of papers that were seminal to the three pillars of 20th century physics: quantum theory, relativity and statistical physics. On account of emblematic achievements, the past era can be considered as the golden century of physics with Einstein in the leading role.

Science has shown that nature is highly symmetric at its most basic levels, but Einstein was rather daring when he stated that it is not that natural architecture is symmetric, but that symmetry determines its design. The equivalences of mass and energy, of acceleration and gravity, and the close coupling between time and space emerge as direct consequences of relativity’s symmetry. The outcome, with the contributions of many others, has been the standardization of the model of the structure of matter and of a modern cosmology where the Universe had a beginning and evolves expansively. On the other hand, Einstein also sowed the culture of a unified vision of the whole, and devoted the second half of his life to its arduous cultivation. Harvest did not arrive, and has not arrived yet, but the challenge definitely dominates the development of contemporary physics. We follow the guidelines of Paul Dirac’s relativistic quantum theory from the end of the 20’s, where key concepts such as antimatter and the spin of fundamental particles formally emerged; of the unification of electromagnetic and weak nuclear interactions by Weinberg, Glashow and Salam in the 60’s; of the discovery, in the 70’s, of the effect of gravitational waves in a binary pulsar by Hulse and Taylor; of Hawking’s radiation in black holes; and of the interest, quantum as well as cosmological, about dark matter and energy.

Physics is the hearth of science, the incubator par excellence of new ideas and the platform for most modern technologies. World politics during the second half of the 20^th century was determined by the Cold War. In other words, by E=mc². Building a sustainable knowledge-based economy will depend upon the academic scaffolds provided by the basic sciences and a dynamic R&D driven by multidisciplinary initiatives where the training of a physicist has an enormous potential. However, in our modern culture prevails the perception of physics as a remote discipline, separated from current problems, whose relevance in scientific research can even be obviated in many cases. Both in industrialized and developing countries, several facts illustrate this situation: the permanent exclusion of the physical sciences from governmental priority areas, the meager resources allocated to projects and investment in infrastructure and adequate installations to respond to the actual needs, the low participation of women and the constant decrease in the number of physics teachers, undergraduate and graduate students and researchers.

The World Year of Physics 2005 takes advantage of the world-wide recognition of Einstein’s figure to attract attention to these serious problems. We want to promote the public understanding of the physical sciences, their cultural heritage, physics for development and its vitality in an education where motivation and curiosity at young ages are emphasized. Programmed events span from street actions to international meetings. The inaugural session was successfully held from January 13 to 15 in Paris, under the auspices of UNESCO, with the attendance of 1200 participants, over half of them students. In all the countries of the Americas and throughout the year, informative and educational activities oriented towards the young, as well as meetings of national societies for physics, are being programmed. These activities, as well as art exhibits, theater plays and publications related to 20th century physics, will count on the active participation of the respective national societies for the advancement of science.

Claudio Mendoza

Center for Physics

Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas