The world is celebrating the "2005 International Year of Physics" this year. This is not only to commemorate the miraculous 1905 year of Albert Einstein, but also to promote physics as well as to remind the public of the importance of physics. Physics is the foundation of all sciences. Although we can trace its development to early Greek philosophers, true progress started when Galileo realized physics was an experimental science, i.e. all theories must be tested by experimental observations. Since then the great discoveries of Kepler, Newton, Faraday and Maxwell etc. formed the basis of classical physics which is also what the traditional industries are founded upon.

    Twenty Century is when physics progresses most rapidly. Quantum mechanics and theory of relativity, created by Planck, Einstein, Bohr, de Broglie, Heisenberg, Schroedinger and Dirac, bring us from the subjective macroscopic world to the objective microscopic world. Not only modern physics greatly helped the progress of chemistry, biology and cosmology, but also of modern technologies and industries such as chemical and materials industries, biomedical and pharmaceutical industries, semiconductor and information technologies, space and defense industries.

    Physics in fact has completely changed the life style as well as the way of thinking of mankind during the last century. It is because of the great impact physics has made to the mankind that Einstein was chosen as "Man of the 20th Century" by Time magazine. Yet as we are entering the 21st Century, public interest and support of physics and science are diminishing. There is no doubt that rapid technological development since the industrial revolution has overtaxed the earth, thus creating many problems such as environmental pollution, global warming and depletion of ozone layer, etc. We are also faced with the lack of sufficient energy resources for sustained development in addition to problems in environmental protection and human health as well as population explosion and aging due to the ever lengthening life span. The public starts to blame all these ills to science and technology, especially to physics. It is up to physicists and scientists themselves to remind the public and government officials of the importance of physics. In fact to be able to solve all these problems effectively and intelligently, we still have to rely on knowledge of physics and science.

    For physicists from Asia Pacific regions, our responsibility is even greater. Looking back at the history of physics and science, we realize that our contributions to their progress have been very limited. Fortunately this is only a historical accident in our culture bias. There is no mental deficiency of our people to excel in physics and science as demonstrated by recent important contributions made by many Asia Pacific scientists educated in western countries. Their contributions are well recognized around the world. The responsibility of AAPPS is therefore to actively promote physics research and education in our regions so that our scientists can reach their full potential for making important contributions of our share in physics as well as in other sciences in the very near future.