Research frontiers in the physical sciences

As a prestigious generalist journal with a high scholarly reputation and a long influential history, the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (Series A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences), is an ideal vehicle for charting research frontiers across the physical sciences. It is the world's longest running scientific journal, and all issues since its foundation in 1665 are archived electronically by JSTOR in the USA (see http://www.jstor.org/) and are accessible through most university libraries. This archive gives facsimile access, and search facilities, to the works of many famous scientists. In this brief editorial I give first an introduction to the special Christmas issues by young scientists, followed by an overview of the fields covered.