Related papers: Outlook: The Next Twenty Years
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…
Looking ahead to the next decade and imagining the landscape of astronomy in 2020, it is clear that astronomical surveys, large and small, plus extensive follow-up projects, will be a great engine of progress in our profession. Surveys have…
General Relativity (GR) revolutionized the way we thought about gravity. After briefly describing the key successes of GR and its impact, I will discuss the major conceptual challenges it faces today. I conclude by outlining the prospective…
Along with weaving together observations, experiments, and theoretical constructs into a coherent mesh of understanding of the world around us, physics over its past five centuries has continuously refined the base concepts on which the…
The past two decades have witnessed tremendous progress in the microscopic description of atomic nuclei. The Topical Review `The Future of Nuclear Structure' aims at summarizing the current state-of-the-art microscopic calculations in…
We present a state-of-the-art report on visualization in astrophysics. We survey representative papers from both astrophysics and visualization and provide a taxonomy of existing approaches based on data analysis tasks. The approaches are…
We start by remarks on the scientific and societal context of today's theoretical physics. Major classes of models for physics to be explored at the LHC are then reviewed. This leads us to propose an LHC timeline and a list of potential…
We review the impact of global helioseismology on key questions concerning the internal structure and dynamics of the Sun, and consider the exciting challenges the field faces as it enters a fourth decade of science exploitation. We do so…
We present a list of open questions in mathematical physics. After a historical introduction, a number of problems in a variety of different fields are discussed, with the intention of giving an overall impression of the current status of…
In the next decade, high energy physicists will use very sophisticated equipment to record unprecedented amounts of data in the hope of making major advances in our understanding of particle phenomena. Some of the signals of new physics…
Since more than a century we investigate cosmic particles coming from the Universe with the aim of understanding their nature, their origin and how they are accelerated. So far, cosmic rays have provided many impressive results, giving…
Here I identify some of the opportunities in particle physics associated to the lepton sector, according to their perceived significance, and taking into account the current state-of-the-art.
The past few years have seen dramatic breakthroughs and spectacular and puzzling discoveries in astrophysics and cosmology. In many cases, the new observations can only be explained with the introduction of new fundamental physics. Here we…
Laymen and sometimes even physicists think of natural sciences, in particular of theoretical and mathematical physics often as subjects, which unfold according to an intrinsic logical pattern, with the limitations being set only by the…
The first decade of RHIC physics and the first heavy ion running at the LHC have produced a wealth of data and discoveries. It is timely to now evaluate what has been learned and ask what compelling new questions have been raised. In this…
We first review the historical developments, both in physics and in mathematics, that preceded (and in some sense provided the background of) deformation quantization. Then we describe the birth of the latter theory and its evolution in the…
We outline the course of affairs in the experimental and theoretical fields of nuclear and particle physics which determined its finale, and give several fragmentary remarks on its present state. The essay tells about events and their…
Robotics is called to be the next technological revolution and estimations indicate that it will trigger the fourth industrial revolution. This article presents a review of some of the most relevant milestones that occurred in robotics over…
High-energy collisions at the LHC are now starting. The new physics agenda of the LHC is reviewed, with emphasis on the hunt for the Higgs boson (or whatever replaces it) and supersymmetry. In particular, the prospects for discovering new…
Physics issues at the upcoming and planned colliders are discussed. We critically review the the different arguments that suggest that New Physics is bound to materialise at the TeV scale and why we should keep an open minded approach. The…