Related papers: From Hadrons to Gravitons via Strings

This article surveys some of the highlights in the development of string theory through the first superstring revolution in 1984. The emphasis is on topics in which the author was involved, especially the observation that critical string…

The early history of string theory is marked by a shift from strong interaction physics to quantum gravity. The first string models and associated theoretical framework were formulated in the late 1960s and early 1970s in the context of the…

I discuss the early developments of string theory with respect to its connection with gauge theory and general relativity from my own perspective. The period covered is mainly from 1969 to 1974, during which I became involved in research on…

The search for a theory of quantum gravity faces two great challenges: the incredibly small scales of the Planck length and time, and the possibility that the observed constants of nature are in part the result of random processes. A…

This lecture presents a brief overview of the early history of string theory and supersymmetry. It describes how the S-matrix theory program for understanding the strong nuclear force evolved into superstring theory, which is a promising…

Some problems in finding a complete quantum theory incorporating gravity are discussed. One is that of giving a consistent unitary description of high-energy scattering. Another is that of giving a consistent quantum description of…

A very brief review is given of the current state of research in quantum gravity. Over the past fifteen years, two approaches have emerged as the most promising paths to a quantum theory of gravity: string theory and quantum geometry. I…

An overview is given of the way in which the unification program of particle physics has evolved into the proposal of superstring theory as a prime candidate for unifying quantum gravity with the other forces and particles of nature. A key…

String theory is at the moment the only advanced approach to a unification of all interactions, including gravity. But, in spite of the more than thirty years of its existence, it does not make any empirically testable predictions, and it…

The status of string theory is reviewed, and major recent developments - especially those in going beyond perturbation theory in the string theory and quantum field theory frameworks - are discussed. This analysis helps better understand…

In this talk we discuss the need to introduce a string theory in order to obtain a consistent quantum theory of gravity unified with gauge interactions. We then discuss some basic properties of string theory and the origin and the…

In discussing the construction of a consistent theory of quantum gravity unified with the gauge interactions we are naturally led to a string theory. We review its properties and the five consistent supersymmetric string theories in ten…

String theory has been initially derived from motivations coming from strong interaction phenomenology,but its application faced deep conceptual and practical difficulties. The strong interactions found their theoretical foundation…

This elementary introduction to string field theory highlights the features and the limitations of this approach to quantum gravity as it is currently understood. String field theory is a formulation of string theory as a field theory in…

These lectures trace the origin of string theory as a theory of hadronic interactions (predating QCD itself) to the present ideas on how the QCD string may arise in Superstring theory in a suitably deformed background metric. The…

This article provides some historical background and then reviews developments in string theory over the last twenty-five years or so. Both perturbative and non-perturbative approaches to string theory are surveyed and their impact on how…

We present a bird's-eye survey on the development of fundamental ideas of quantum gravity, placing emphasis on perturbative approaches, string theory, loop quantum gravity, and black hole thermodynamics. The early ideas at the dawn of…

Quantum gravity was born as that branch of modern theoretical physics that tries to unify its guiding principles, i.e., quantum mechanics and general relativity. Nowadays it is providing new insight into the unification of all fundamental…

In the nearly twenty years that have elapsed since its discovery, the gauge-gravity correspondence has become established as an efficient tool to explore the physics of a large class of strongly-coupled field theories. A brief overview is…

We begin by outlining the ancient puzzle of off shell currents and infinite size particles in a string theory of hadrons. We then consider the problem from the modern AdS/CFT perspective. We argue that although hadrons should be thought of…