Related papers: Anticipating a New Golden Age
Over the past decade, sky surveys such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey have proven the power of large data sets for answering fundamental astrophysical questions. This observational progress, based on a synergy of advances in telescope…
In most of the proposals for new physics beyond the standard model, neutrinos have new interactions and some of them have phenomenological consequences that, although at present they may seem purely academic, probably will have to be taken…
This meeting is entitled "A Century of Cosmology." But most of the papers being given here are based on work done very recently and there is really no attempt being made to critically review what has taken place in the last 90 or 100 years.…
The accelerating expansion of the universe presents an exciting, fundamental challenge to the standard models of particle physics and cosmology. I highlight some of the outstanding challenges in both developing theoretical models and…
As we approach the centennial anniversary of modern quantum mechanics this paper revisits the foundational debates through a new poll within the research community. Inspired by the survey by Schlosshauer, Kofler, and Zeilinger at the…
I first comment on some recent advances in computing equipment for CPU-intensive numerical simulations, and on possible developments in the near future. I then discuss some particularly important and yet unsolved problems in dynamics and…
The successful construction and operation of highly sensitive gravitational-wave detectors is an achievement to be proud of, but the detection of actual signals is still around the corner. Even so, null results from recent searches have…
We discuss the fundamental principles underlying the current physical theories and the prospects of further improving their knowledge through experiments in space.
Quantum Mechanics, almost 80 years after its arrival, is a well established and experimentally not falsified theory. It has predicted and explained a whole series of natural phenomena of a very delicate nature. But its interpretation has…
Most major discoveries in astronomy are unplanned, and result from surveying the Universe in a new way, rather than by testing a hypothesis or conducting an investigation with planned outcomes. For example, of the 10 greatest discoveries…
A goal of physics is to understand the greatest possible breadth of natural phenomena in terms of the most economical set of basic concepts. However, as the understanding of physics has developed historically, its pedagogy and language have…
It is only human nature to be reluctant to accept something new and different. This feeling is exacerbated given the success of the Big Bang model. However, there are cogent reasons for considering this new model. Some of the advantages of…
The recent progress in establishing the existence of finite neutrino masses and mixing between generations of neutrinos has been remarkable, if not astounding. The combined results from studies of atmospheric neutrinos, solar neutrinos, and…
This is a historical account from my personal perspective of the development over the last few decades of the standard model of particle physics. The model is based on gauge theories, of which the first was quantum electrodynamics,…
It is argued that correlations and multiplicity distributions constitute one of the most characteristic properties of strong interactions. The progress made in the last years in our understanding of correlations is reviewed.
The currently accepted mathematical description of the fundamental constituents and interactions of matter is the Standard Model of particle physics. Its last missing particle, the famous Higgs boson, was observed at the Large Hadron…
Given the experimental precision in condensed matter physics -- positions are measured with errors of less than 0.1pm, energies with about 0.1meV, and temperature levels are below 20mK -- it can be inferred that standard quantum mechanics,…
Modern theories of fundamental interactions describe strong, electromagnetic and weak interactions as quantum field theories with certain kinds of embedded internal symmetries called `gauge symmetries'. This article introduces quantum field…
High-energy cosmic neutrinos can reveal new fundamental particles and interactions, probing energy and distance scales far exceeding those accessible in the laboratory. This white paper describes the outstanding particle physics questions…
In papers on the history of general relativity and in personal remembrances of relativists, keywords like "renaissance" and "golden age" of general relativity have been used. We try to show that the first label rests on a weak empirical…