Cosmic evolution: A few concluding remarks

Cosmic evolution, as we see it, involves a variety of different length- and time-scales, ranging from the micro-cosmos we experience on Earth to scales of billions of years and light-years which constitute the macro-cosmos around us. This Conference was devoted to many questions relevant on all those scales: Nuclear reactions that are responsible for the generation of energy in stars, but can be studied in the laboratory; stellar evolution from birth to death, studied observationally and by computer simulations; formation and evolution of galaxies, large scale structures, and the entire Universe from the Big Bang until today. The common link between all these seemingly rather different topics is our curiosity, best reflected in the scientific lives of two eminent colleagues, Jean Audouze and Jim Truran, who's 60th birthdays were celebrated. An attempt is made to give a brief account of some of their most important contributions to all these fields which, due to the lack of space, has to be a very incomplete summary. Moreover, some of the recent developments, presented at the conference, will be mentioned briefly.