We have stepped into the new era of year 2000. As we look forward to a brand new era, we have not forgotten the conclusions for the twentieth century we have come to last year. Last year in March, Time Magazine has selected the 20 greatest scientists and thinkers of the last millennium. As an appreciation of the most influential and eminent people in the last millennium, Ming Pao has also elected the millennium figures through the internet last summer. To be elected in one of these elections, apart from one's talents, he/she has to be recognized by the public as well. Imagine, if somebody is selected in both, he must really be somebody! Is there such a legendary person?

That's right! One of them is Einstein, whom everybody knows as a friendly, kindhearted old man with wrinkles all over his face. His messy hair and bright smile have disclosed his wisdom and his childlike character. Einstein's relativity theory has brought to human a better understanding of the universe. The familiar scientific terms: black hole, space travel, distortion of space-time all came from nowhere but the theory of relativity. Einstein and other physicists have devoted their whole lives researching in physics - not only did they let us understand physics, but fall in love with it.

In order for the younger generation to understand and love physics, apart from school curriculum, the dissemination of science is of equal importance. In the last some 30 years, the Physics Department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong has contributed enormously in these two areas. Many secondary school physics teachers used to be the hardworking youths in our department who have gone through many trials and tribulations in their studies. They are actively educating the younger generation now. In addition to showing our respect to these counterparts, we also want to organize different types of activities to support their work. One of them was the "Teachers' Day" we held in 1998, in which we have not only arranged our departmental staff to deliver seminars, other experts were also invited to share their invaluable experience. They include our colleagues in the Curriculum Development Institute of the Education Department and Professor Mak Se-yuen from the Faculty of Education of the Chinese University. Our activities have even extended beyond the campus: our lecturers and professors often visit secondary schools and introduce knowledge and contemporary research topics in physics to students.

Moving along with the internet boom and the growing demand of information technology education, our department has already launched our homepage years ago. Through the homepage, we establish contacts with people interested in physics and we answer academic queries from secondary school students. Besides, we are actively promoting information technology education in our department. In the course of trials, our experience grows. We were also invited by other institutions to host seminars and workshops, and to share our fruits with our secondary school counterparts.

To provide efficient support to our secondary counterparts and to promote physics among the youths, our department has decided to allocate more resources on secondary school education and on the dissemination of science in 1999. In addition to improving our works mentioned above, we have also excavated a new ground on the World Wide Web - "Physics World". We anticipate that this website would function to connect and support our secondary school counterparts and to provide a ground for them to share their emotions, for better or worse. To popularize science is also an important goal of Physics World. As members in higher education, we bear the responsibility to introduce novel dimensions in physics research to the younger generation in a language that can be easily understood. After an effortful year, our Physics World is recognized by more and more secondary school counterparts. Their invaluable comments have illuminated our work. On the threshold of the millennium, the Education Department has also joined hands with us to push back the frontiers of this web-based teaching resource. We are not only thankful to the Education Department for providing us with resources, but we also greatly appreciate the opportunity to get closer to our secondary school counterparts. We can thus better understand the needs and challenges they encountered in teaching. More preciously, we are exposed to lots of experience and reflections in teaching through contacting with the counterparts - these can never be learnt from books, but they are fresh lives filled up with energy and passion.

Nevertheless, we do not aim at staying at where we are. We have to forget about the past and look forward. In the foreseeable future, we hope that we can develop the web site further in collaboration with more secondary schools. In the long run, we hope that more people will understand and love physics as Physics World is launched. If the establishment of Physics World is the first milestone as we pave our way in physics education, cooperating with the Education Department would be the second, symbolizing another stage we have marched into.

Physics World does not belong to us alone. It does not matter whether you are teaching or learning physics in a secondary or a tertiary institution or not; only if you are interested in physics, we hope that you would like this web site and become a member. We are looking forward to meet you in Physics World.