It is argued that the key task in understanding magnetic fields in the cosmos is to comprehend the origin of their order or coherence over large length scales in galaxies. Obtaining magnetic fields can be done in stars, whose lifetime is usually 1010 rotations, while galactic disks have approximately 20 to 50 rotations in their lifetime since the last major merger, which established the present day gaseous disk. Disorder in the galactic magnetic fields is injected on the disk time scale of about 30 million years, about a tenth of the rotation period, so after one half rotation already it should become completely disordered. Therefore whatever mechanism Nature is using, it must compete with such a short time scale, to keep order in its house. This is the focal quest.

• PETER L. BIERMANN(Max-Planck Institute for Radioastronomy, Bonn/Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Bonn/Department of Astronomy, Indiana University)
• PHILIPP P. KRONBER(Los Alamos National Laboratory, IGPP/Physics Department, University of Toronto)