Moonshine - The First Quarter Century and Beyond

In 1979, John Conway and Simon Nortons famous paper, Monstrous Moonshine outlined the remarkable connection between the monster group M and the theory of modular functions. The search for an explanation of this phenomenon involved the development and application of diverse areas of mathematics, including (generalized) Kac-Moody algebras, vertex (operator) algebras, automorphic forms and elliptic cohomology, together with string and conformal field theory from theoretical physics. This volume consists of seventeen papers based on talks presented at a workshop held to mark the anniversary of Monstrous Moonshine. Containing a mixture of expository and current research material, they illustrate its extensive impact and reflect the broad range of research activity that has stemmed from the Moonshine conjectures. Potential directions for future development are also discussed.