World Scientific extended a warm welcome to Professor Hagen Kleinert and his lovely wife Ann-Marie, Prof Mikhail Shifman and Prof Paul Frampton during their visit to the Singapore headquarter of their publisher.

Professors Kleinert, Shifman and Frampton - who are all World Scientific's authors - were plenary speakers at the Gell-Mann's Conference. Hailing from the other side of the globe in USA, the trio did not want to miss the opportunity to visit the premises of World Scientific on the third and final day of the conference.

Professor Kleinert has been an author of World Scientific since 1989, the early years of the company's inception. His best-selling work - Path Integrals in Quantum Mechanics, Statistics, Polymer Physics - was extended to include the Financial Markets, and published recently as fifth edition. His other book, Multivalued Fields: In Condensed Matter, Electromagnetism, and Gravitation, was one of World Scientific's best sellers at the conference venue.

Professor Mikhail Shifman truly seemed excited about his visit to World Scientific since he has known Professor K K Phua, Chairman of World Scientific and Imperial College Press, as a fellow high energy physicist from the late 1970s even before the company was conceptualized. He has been World Scientific's author since 1994. Some of his classic works include ITEP Lectures on Particle Physics and Field Theory (2 volumes), From Fields to Strings: Circumnavigating Theoretical Physics (an edited 3-volume set) and At the Frontier of Particle Physics: Handbook of QCD (a 4-volume edited set). He has been on the editorial board of International Journal of Modern Physics A - World Scientific's oldest journal - for several years.

Professor Paul Frampton, an author with a long association with our company since his first book Dual Resonance Models and Superstrings was published in 1986, had World Scientific staff in smiles from the time he entered the office with his witty remarks and observations. He was very keen to catch up with his editor to provide some feedback before the second printing of his recent bestseller Did Time Begin? Will Time End? Maybe the Big Bang Never Occurred.

Over a cup of tea, the authors were happy to have the chance for a face-to-face chat with their desk editors getting an opportunity to also meet the production, sales and marketing managers - the key people behind the success of their books. The trio was deeply impressed by the handsome display of books and journals in the World Scientific library.