[en] Over the last two decades great progress has been made in the development of storage rings with small transverse emittance. It is now a good time to consider the possibility of achieving very short bunches m storage rings. From the perspective of synchrotron radiation source development, there are at least two motivations for obtaining short electron bunches: (1) the generation of sub- picosecond x-ray pulses and (2) the coherent emission of sub- picosecond pulses of far infrared radiation. A useful short-term goal is the experimental study of bunches with 1 ps rms length both at high (approx-gt 1 GeV) and low (approx-lt 150 MeV) electron energies. Experiments on 1 ps bunches are now feasible and can yield new insight into the high frequency impedance of storage rings and the associated phenomena which can result in bunch lengthening. Achievement of 1 ps bunches can also be expected to allow the first observation of coherent synchrotron radiation in a storage ring, in the millimeter wavelength regime. A longer-term objective is the realization of 100 fs bunches. Achievement of this goal not only will advance understanding of storage rings but will open up new opportunities in synchrotron radiation based research at both x-ray and far infrared wavelengths. It is now an appropriate time to carry forward theoretical investigations clarifying the fundamental limitations on bunch length, and to devise schemes to minimize it