1900年，著名的数学家希尔波特在巴黎国际数学家大会上提出了23个数学问题。这些问题激发了全世界数学家的兴趣。希尔波特的问题对数学的研究方向产生了深远的影响，并且超出他最初提出的23个问题。
在2000年超弦会议上，所有与会者也被请来提出基础物理学中十个最重要的问题。每个参与者只允许提出一个候选问题。为保证质量，这些问题不仅仅是重要的，还要外延清楚表述清晰。
在会议最后，由Michael Duff、David Gross、Edward Witten三人组成的问题评选委员会确定了以下十个问题。

Here are the problems:
1. Are all the (measurable) dimensionless parameters that characterize the physical universe calculable in principle or are some merely determined by historical or quantum mechanical accident and uncalculable?
David Gross, Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara

2. How can quantum gravity help explain the origin of the universe?
Edward Witten, California Institute of Technology and Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
3. What is the lifetime of the proton and how do we understand it?
Steve Gubser, Princeton University and California Institute of Technology
4. Is Nature supersymmetric, and if so, how is supersymmetry broken?
Sergio Ferrara, CERN (European Laboratory of Particle Physics)
Gordon Kane, University of Michigan
5. Why does the universe appear to have one time and three space dimensions?
Shamit Kachru, University of California, Berkeley
Sunil Mukhi, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
Hiroshi Ooguri, California Institute of Technology
6. Why does the cosmological constant have the value that it has, is it zero and is it really constant?
Andrew Chamblin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Renata Kallosh, Stanford University
7. What are the fundamental degrees of freedom of M-theory (the theory whose low-energy limit is eleven-dimensional supergravity and which subsumes the five consistent superstring theories) and does the theory describe Nature?
Louise Dolan, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Annamaria Sinkovics, Spinoza Institute
Billy & Linda Rose, San Antonio College
8. What is the resolution of the black hole information paradox?
Tibra Ali, Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, Cambridge
Samir Mathur, Ohio State University
9. What physics explains the enormous disparity between the gravitational scale and the typical mass scale of the elementary particles?
Matt Strassler, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
10. Can we quantitatively understand quark and gluon confinement in Quantum Chromodynamics and the existence of a mass gap?
Igor Klebanov, Princeton University
Oyvind Tafjord, McGill University
These ten questions were presented by David Gross at the closing of the conference on Saturday July 15, 2000.
以下是彭罗斯的演讲http://feynman.physics.lsa.umich.edu/cgi-bin/s2ktalk.cgi?questions

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