Related papers: The Emperor's Last Clothes?
The mathematical rules used to handle systems of identical quantum particles bring into question whether the elementary constituents of matter, such as electrons, have the fundamental characteristics of persistence and reidentifiability…
After discussing alternative scenarios for the origins of the electroweak symmetry breaking, I briefly review the experimental status of the Standard Model. I explore further both the hints for, and constraints on, supposing that that a…
One hundred years ago this year attempts began to generalise general relativity with the ambition of incorporating electromagnetism alongside gravitation in a unified field theory. These developments led to gauge theories and models with…
Effective theories based on experimental data provide powerful probes and tests of underlying theories in elementary particle physics. Examples within and beyond the Standard Model are discussed, including a specific model for supersymmetry…
During the past two decades, cosmologists turned to particle physics in order to explore the physics of the very early Universe. The main link between the physics of the smallest and largest structures in the Universe is the idea of…
Although the Standard Model of particle physics is usually formulated in terms of fields, it can be equivalently formulated in terms of particles and strings. In this picture particles and open strings are always coupled. This offers an…
This is a completely reformulated presentation of a previous paper with the same title; this time with a much stronger emphasis on conceptual aspects of string theory and a detailed review of its already more than four decades lasting…
From classical mechanics to quantum field theory, the physical facts at one point in space are held to be independent of those at other points in space. I propose that we can usefully challenge this orthodoxy in order to explain otherwise…
There ought to exist a reformulation of quantum theory, even at energy scales much lower than Planck scale, which does not depend on classical time. Such a formulation is required also for the standard model of particle physics, at the low…
Following Dyson's analogy between the quantum field theory and the 19th-century chemistry-both explain how but not why-one could also establish an analogy between atomic physics and string theory. Atomic physics was needed to answer the…
The need for revolution in modern physics is a well known and often broached subject, however, the precision and success of current models narrows the possible changes to such a great degree that there appears to be no major change…
Many macroscopic physical processes are known to occur in a time-directed way despite the apparent time-symmetry of the known fundamental laws. A popular explanation is to postulate an unimaginably atypical state for the early universe -- a…
We introduce the standard model of elementary particles and discuss the reasons why we have to modify it. Emphasis is put on the indications from the neutrinos and on the role of the Higgs particle; some promising theoretical ideas, like…
The Standard Model of particle physics and the theory of General Relativity (GR) currently provide a good description of almost all phenomena of particle physics and gravitation that have received controlled experimental tests. However, the…
A tradition handed down among physicists maintains that classical physics is a perfectly deterministic theory capable of predicting the future with absolute certainty, independently of any interpretations. It also tells that it was quantum…
Does information play a significant role in the foundations of physics? Information is the abstraction that allows us to refer to the states of systems when we choose to ignore the systems themselves. This is only possible in very…
The mystery of the cosmological constant is probably the most pressing obstacle to significantly improving the models of elementary particle physics derived from string theory. The problem arises because in the standard framework of low…
Current theoretical physics suggests the flow of time is an illusion: the entire universe just is, with no special meaning attached to the present time. This paper points out that this view, in essence represented by usual space-time…
After a very brief review of twentieth century elementary particle physics, prospects for the next century are discussed. First and most important are technological limits of opportunities; next, the future experimental program, and finally…
Without a doubt many problems in physics arise as a consequence of our philosophical conception of the world. In this contribution however we endeavor to alleviate this scenario by putting forward a philosophical approach under which some…