Over the last twenty five years the Department of Physics at the University of Auckland has grown from a small group into an organisation of considerable size and stature. Under the guidance first of
 Professor Burbidge and then of Professor Brown the Department has developed a comprehensive course structure at the undergraduate and graduate levels and established a high reputation widely recognised today. In spite of the difficulties facing all pioneers in University education in those early years, these men were also able to foster a research programme capable of giving substance to all courses, particularly to those offered at the graduate level. With their interest and enthusiasm as the driving force, research into nuclear physics, the field of their choice, increased steadily in scope, and today the Department of Physics boasts an impressive array of sophisticated equipment housed in its Nuclear Physics Laboratories.