PREFACE: 12th Conference on Recent Developments in Gravity (NEB XII)

Continuing the 24 year old tradition, one of the Greek relativistic groups, this time the Relativity Group of the Physics Department of the University of Athens, organized the 12th Conference of the series "Recent Developments in Gravity" (NEB XII). This time NEB took place at Nafplio, Greece, from Thursday 29 June to Sunday 2 July, 2006. The Conference was attended by more than 100 participants, more than 50% of whom were relativists from abroad (both Greek and other nationalities). This signifies a tendency of the last few Conferences to open up the Greek Relativity Conference to the international scientific community. Actually, many notable members of the relativistic community all over the globe showed particular interest in coming to Nafplio, and spend four relaxed days in a nice sunny and historical place, presenting the results of their more recent work and discussing it with colleagues and students from Greece.

The NEB XII Conference covered various aspects of gravitational physics: Relativistic Astrophysics, Mathematical Relativity, Quantum Gravity, and Cosmology. Although the program was rather heavy and for the first time we had parallel sessions running in the afternoons, the wonderful weather (apart from the last afternoon when it rained heavily) and the beauty of Nafplio helped the organizers offer the participants a warm, pleasant, and creative time. According to most attendees, their impression was more than good, not only with respect to the hospitable environment, but with respect to the high level of talks as well. We hope the next Conference, which will be organized by the Relativity Group of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in the summer of 2008, will raise the standards of the Conference even higher, thus further establishing our Conference as a notable Conference in the Relativistic community all over the world.

Finally, we would like to thank the Gravitational Physics Section of the European Physical Society (GPS/EPS), ILIAS/ENTApP, the Hellenic Ministry for Education and Religion, Athens University and ETHNIKI Insurance Co. that financially supported the Conference. We also thank the members of the Local Organizing Committee and the International Scientific Committee.

Editors

Theodosios I Christodoulakis Elias C Vagenas

International Scientific Committee

Kokkotas, K (University of Thessaloniki, Greece) Schäfer, G (University of Jena, Germany) Zanelli, J (CECS, Chile)

Local Organizing Committee

Christodoulakis, T I (University of Athens) Chairman Apostolatos, T (University of Athens) Stavrinos, P (University of Athens) Grammenos, T (University of Thessaly) Zoupas, A (University of Athens and University of Thessaly) Vagenas, E C (University of Athens)