Perspectives in heavy ion physics

This is an introductory lecture which surveys some topics of current interest in heavy ion physics. There is a discussion of several aspects of elastic scattering, quasi elastic reactions and sub-barrier fusion. Heavy ion reactions can be used to produce highly excited nuclei and it is possible to get information about high spin states, giant resonance and various resonance-like structures whose nature is not yet understood. Dissipative processes in heavy ion collisions are important for deep inelastic scattering and related phenomena. (author)