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Dear Colleagues  On April 8, 1982, Danny Shechtman had the great fortune of looking at the first electron diffraction diagram of a quasicrystal, consisting of a set of sharp Bragg peaks with icosahedral point-group symmetry—an impossibility by all scientific standards of the day. This observation was followed by the ground-breaking publications of Shechtman and Blech, of Shechtman, Blech, Gratias and Cahn, and of Levine and Steinhardt, which focused the attention of the world on quasicrystals. The discovery of quasicrystals signaled the beginning of a remarkable scientific revolution, in which some of the most basic notions of condensed matter physics and material science have undergone a thorough reexamination. Two and a half decades later, the science of quasicrystals is in its adolescence. Old paradigms are being carefully transformed into new ones; definitions are being changed; space-group theory has been generalized to quasicrystals; and many fundamental problems—including the famous question: ``Where are the atoms?''—are gradually finding their solutions. Nevertheless, other questions that are equally important have remained unanswered to this day. Some of these—such as the stabilization of quasicrystals, their transport and other physical properties, and the importance of the unique phason degree of freedom - are the reasons that we are all still so actively involved in, and excited about, our study of quasicrystals. I invite you to join us in a scientific celebration of the 25th anniversary of the discovery of quasicrystals, to be held on the beautiful Mediterranean beaches of Tel Aviv, 14-19 October 2007. We shall review the incredible progress we have made in the first 25 years, celebrate our great achievements, and identify our main goals for the next 25 years of research on quasicrystals. I hope to see you all in Tel Aviv. Sincerely yours, Ron Lifshitz. |