Related papers: Different minds in the jigsaw puzzle of H-bomb sto…
The attempts to find the right (underlying) theory for the nuclear force have a long and stimulating history. Already in 1953, Hans Bethe stated that "more man-hours have been given to this problem than to any other scientific question in…
The physics is created by human beings with all weaknesses of human nature. This story caught our attention since it demonstrates how fragile the human destiny is and even genius cannot find freedom and preserve human dignity in the face of…
In this article, I trace the early historical developments that ultimately led to the creation of the atomic bomb. Even after the completion of weapons, many scientists continued to argue that nuclear armaments were indispensable for…
I present a concise review of the Higgs problem which plays a central role in particle physics today. The Higgs of the minimal Standard Model is so far just a conjecture that needs to be verified or discarded at the LHC. Probably the…
Old and new ideas regarding Higgs physics are reviewed. We first summarize the quadratic divergence / hierarchy problem which strongly suggests that the SM Higgs sector will be supplemented by new physics at high scales. We next consider…
Maybe the biggest puzzle in grand unified theories (GUTs) is the apparent large splitting of the doublet and triplet Higgs masses. We suggest a novel mechanism to solve this puzzle, which relies on the clockwork mechanism to generate large…
The purpose of this article is to provide a novel approach and justification of the idea that classical physics and quantum physics can neither function nor even be conceived one without the other - in line with ideas attributed to e.g.…
We discuss the work of Hans Bethe and others in formulating a theoretical foundation for the nuclear shell model. Written for a general audience, this article describes the evolution from Brueckner's reaction matrix theory to the…
Enrico Fermi and Leo Szilard worked together at Columbia in 1939-40, just after nuclear fission was discovered, to ascertain the feasibility of a nuclear chain reaction, and then on the construction of the first nuclear reactor. Szilard…
In 1943 fear that the German war machine might use atomic bombs was abating and among physicists another fear was taking its place - that of a postwar nuclear arms race with worldwide proliferation of nuclear weapons. Manhattan Project…
A critical re-examination of the double-slit experiment and its variants is presented to clarify the nature of what Feynmann called the ``central mystery'' and the ``only mystery'' of quantum mechanics, leading to an interpretation of…
The black hole information problem has been a challenge since Hawking's original 1975 paper. It led to the discovery of AdS/CFT, which gave a partial resolution of the paradox. However, recent developments, in particular the firewall…
The heaviest of the transuranic elements known as superheavy elements (SHE) are produced in nuclear reactions in a few specialized laboratories located in Germany, the U.S., Russia, and Japan. The history of this branch of physical science…
For more than a century, physics has known of a puzzling conflict between the T-asymmetry of thermodynamic phenomena and the T-symmetry of the underlying microphysics on which these phenomena depend. This paper provides a guide to the…
The theoretical investigations at ITEP in the years 1945-1958 are reviewed. There are exposed the most important theoretical results, obtained in the following branches of physics: 1) the theory of nuclear reactors on thermal neutrons; 2)…
The present experimental and theoretical knowledge of the physics of electroweak symmetry breaking is reviewed. Data still favor a light Higgs boson, of a kind that can be comfortably accommodated in the Standard Model or in its Minimal…
I discuss LHC physics in the historical perspective of the progress in particle physics. After a recap of the Standard Model of particle physics, I discuss the high energy colliders leading up to LHC and their role in the discovery of these…
The long-standing puzzle of the quenched $g_A$ in nuclei -- and in dense matter -- is shown to have a simple resolution in a scale-symmetric HLS chiral Lagrangian at the Fermi-liquid fixed point. This resolution exposes scale-chiral…
Puzzles often give birth to the great discoveries, the false discoveries sometimes stimulate the exiting ideas in theoretical physics. The historical examples of both are described in Introduction and in section ``Cosmological Puzzles''.…
Supersymmetry and Compositeness are two prevalent paradigms providing both a solution to the hierarchy problem and a motivation for a light Higgs boson state. As the latter has now been found, its dynamics can hold the key to disentangle…