In July of 1999, more than 300 physicists from across the United States and eleven other countries met for two weeks in Snowmass Village, Colorado, to discuss the present state of the U.S. fusion energy science research program and its future direction. The long, formal title of this meeting was "1999 Fusion Summer Study: Opportunities and Directions in Fusion Energy Science for the Next Decade." Importantly, the magnetic confinement effort and the inertial confinement effort were both broadly represented. Making specific decisions about program management was not in the charter of the meeting; however, the opinions expressed are certainly expected to have a profound effect on the decision-making system in the months and years to come.

Several of the papers presented at that meeting have now been published in a special issue of Comments on Modern Physics, Section C: Comments on Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion." Preparation of the issue, titled "Fusion at the Crossroads," was coordinated by Dmitri Ryutov and James W. Van Dam.

This special issue of Comments on Modern Physics consists of papers written by several of the plenary speakers and working group leaders. The authors are all highly respected and influential scientists, whose voices of experience are worth heeding. The issue includes the following papers:

D. E. Baldwin (General Atomics), "Thoughts on Fusion Priorities"

D. C. Barnes (Los Alamos National Laboratory), "Orthogonal Approaches to 21st Century Fusion Energy Science"

R. Conn (University of California, San Diego), "Reflections on Fusion's History and Implications for Fusion's Future"

D. Meade (Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory), "Fusion Ignition Research Experiment"

R. W. Moir (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), "Liquid Walls for Fusion Reaction Chambers"

C. L. Olson (Sandia National Laboratories), "Inertial Fusion Concepts Working Group Discussions at Snowmass"

M. N. Rosenbluth (University of California, San Diego), "My Prejudices and Preconceptions Going into Snowmass"

D. D. Ryutov (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), "Radical Restructuring of the Fusion Effort"

This issue will be of a particular interest for physicists and engineers involved in energy research, as well as for the planners of research programs, policymakers, and historians of science.

Subscription information is available at the journal's web site: www.gbhap.com/Comments_Modern_Physics/.

Or contact info@gbhap.com, Tel 1-800-545-8398, Fax 1-973-643-7676