Little bang at big accelerators: Heavy ion physics from AGS to LHC

Since the start of ultra-relativistic heavy ion experimentation, some 10 years ago at the Brookhaven AGS and the CERN SPS, it has rarely been as gratifying to open a conference in this field as it is in Jaipur for this 3rd International Conference on Physics and Astrophysics of the Quark-Gluon-Plasma. The advent of a new generation of detectors, and most important, the availability of really heavy ion beams, has lead in the last three years to exciting new results which are of relevance to the most crucial questions this field has been addressing since 1986: are there signs for deconfinement, signs for chiral symmetry restoration, signs for equilibrium hadronic matter visible in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions? The tantalizing answer today to each of these questions {\it seems} to be: yes! If the quest for the QGP is today in its most exciting and productive phase ever, the city of Jaipur is likewise a most pleasant and appropriate place to discuss the most recent progress. India has become a strong and recognized partner in heavy ion physics, with more than 40 experimentalists active in the CERN program and being the 5th largest country in ALICE, and with numerous and important contributions to theory. One can only congratulate the organizers of this conference for their excellent choice of time and place. This opening summary will sketch a rough picture of the heavy ion program at current and future machines and concentrate on a few important topics, leaving the in-depth discussions to the specialized contributions following in these proceedings.