The Summer School lectures showed that polarization, or spin, is a powerful tool for exploring fundamental physics, whether one is probing the spin structure of the nucleon, making precision electroweak measurements at the Z0 resonance, or establishing the nature of particles yet to be discovered at future colliders. Little of this physics would be possible without technical advances in the production and preservation of polarization in accelerators and targets. Highlights of the topical conference included: new measurements of the spin structure functions of the neutron and proton, the opening of a new kinematical regime for e-p collisions at HERA, and a wealth of b physics results from a number of different accelerators.
For many of the participants, however, the highlight of the school may have been the Friday evening outing to Lick Observatory, which became an all-night star-gazing expedition after the bus broke down on the descent from Mt. Hamilton!
We thank all the lecturers for making this a timely and informative school. Thanks are also due to the provocateurs (especially Giuliano Preparata, provocateur extraordinaire) for making the afternoon discussion sessions particularly stimulating.
Finally, the Institute and these Proceedings would have been impossible without the efforts of Lilian DePorcel and Jennifer Chan.
David Burke
Lance Dixon
David Leith