Editorial

Abstract

In his editorial in the very first issue of Classical and Quantum Gravity, 11 January 1984, M~A~MacCallum wrote that `we confidently expect that Classical and Quantum Gravity will become a journal whose contents, by their quality and importance, will enhance the standing of work on gravitation and enrich the world of research and scholarship in physics'. At the time it seemed very courageous (at least to me) to start a journal with `quantum gravity' in the title, but time has meanwhile proved these expectations to be no exaggeration. Classical and Quantum Gravity has blossomed and, under the guidance of the previous Honorary Editors, Malcolm MacCallum, Kellogg Stelle and Gary Gibbons, become a leading international journal in gravitational physics. Perhaps more than other journals in this area, it provides a balanced coverage of the whole field, encompassing all aspects of classical and quantum general relativity. Its importance is reflected amongst other things by the recent increase in the number of submissions (33% over the past four years) as well as in general demand for its publications (28 203 accesses to the electronic journal in 1998). To maintain the standing of the journal we will strive to make further improvements. This concerns in particular the times between submission of a paper and a first decision (presently 81 days on average) and its publication in the journal (presently about 205 days). As a new service to authors and readers, the journal will publish the first multimedia paper in this issue on pair production during the collapse of a texture topological defect (this paper will be a Featured Article freely available from the journal home page on the Web). This option allows researchers with numerical and computational results to display their data in a new way that enhances understanding and use of electronic media. However, the ultimate criterion by which the journal will be judged is the quality of its scientific output, which will be my main priority as new Honorary Editor of Classical and Quantum Gravity. This requires openness towards new developments in the field. For this reason the previous Editorial Board had already decided to broaden the perspectives of the journal with a call for papers in relativistic astrophysics, a field where exciting theoretical and experimental developments are to be expected in the coming years. Later this year we will publish a special supplement on the state of the subject at the turn of the millennium, with papers from some of the most influential contributors to gravitational research over the past 20~years. Classical and Quantum Gravity will also publish the proceedings of both the International Symposium on Experimental Gravitation, to be held in Samarkand, and of this year's string conference, STRINGS '99, in Potsdam. I hope that these features will make the journal even more attractive to its readers and to prospective new authors whom I warmly welcome. Hermann Nicolai