Review of magellanic cloud problems

Extract

It must be obvious to all of us that no such Symposium on the Magellanic Clouds as we have been holding over the past few days would have been possible 10 years ago. At that time, radio work on the Clouds had scarcely begun. de Vaucouleurs, Buscombe, and Gascoigne were preparing their summary on Cloud problems as a preliminary to work with the Canberra 74-inch reflector, while the first results of work with the Radcliffe reflector were slowly beginning to emerge. Even five years ago, such a Symposium could scarcely have been fruitful, but the interest of many northern astronomers in the Clouds had certainly been excited. Now there are far more instruments and astronomers concentrated on Magellanic Cloud problems than ever before and the string of papers presented to this Symposium with lively discussions gives striking evidence of their activity.