In August, 1994, the radio astronomy community in Canada met in Penticton,
B. C. to discuss the future of its field. Radio Astronomy: Visions
for the 21st Century considered current trends and possible future
directions for various scientific subdisciplines, with the goal of
identifying what the ``big questions'' might be 10 years into the future.
This paper is a modified version of one such presentation which considered
galaxies in the context of their environments. It is not intended to be
a thorough review of the most recent literature, but rather an attempt to
identify the more fundamental questions which confront us now and may
continue to challenge us into the foreseeable future.
It is not an easy task to predict what issues will be at the forefront of
a particular field some ten years in the future - indeed, the task is
quite impossible. It is challenge enough to objectively assess the field
now and to discern which questions will lead to the most exciting and
productive advances. However, it occurs to me that the questions which may
confront us over the next decade may very well be ones which have
already confronted us for a decade, or perhaps more. These are the
difficult, enduring problems, like those related to galaxy formation,
galaxy evolution, or dark matter. While it is always hoped that a single
important discovery will settle an issue once and for all, it is more
likely that the evidence will trickle in, slowly shifting our paradigms.
With this in mind, I have asked four very basic questions about galaxies
and their environments. It is debatable whether these are the ``biggest''
questions, but they are certainly simple questions and, like many
simple questions, they do not have simple answers.
1. INTRODUCTION