Related papers: String Theory: The Early Years
This is a rendering of a review talk on the state of String Theory, given at the EPS-2003 Conference, intended for a wide audience of experimental and theoretical physicists. It emphasizes general ideas rather than technical aspects.
This is the written version of a short talk given at the University of Leipzig in December 1998. It reviews some general aspects of string theory from the viewpoint of the search for an unifying theory. Here, special emphasis lies on the…
Invited contribution to the collective book "The Birth of String Theory"
At the present time, string theory (and its generalizations) remain relatively abstruse subjects to the particle phenomenologist and experimentalist. Yet, striking developments of the last two years offer hope that a fundamental…
This essay presents a critical evaluation of the concepts of string theory and its impact on particle physics. The point of departure is a historical review of four decades of ST within the broader context of six decades of failed attempts…
The aim of these notes is to give recent developments in string theory. In particular, we discuss the string spectrums, compactifications, brane physics and dualities.
Currently, string theory represents the only advanced approach to a unification of all interactions, including gravity. In spite of the more than thirty years of its existence it did not make any empirically testable predictions. And it is…
String theory is accused by some of its critics to be a purely abstract mathematical discipline, having lost the contact to the simple yet deeply rooted questions which physics provided until the beginning of this century. We argue that, in…
This essay presents a critical evaluation of the concepts of string theory and its impact on particle physics. The point of departure is a historical review of four decades of string theory within the broader context of six decades of…
It is argued that string theory may pose new conceptual issues for the history and philosophy of science.
This talk considers possible lessons of string theory for low energy physics. These are of two types. First, assuming that string theory is the correct underlying theory of all interactions, we ask whether there are any generic predictions…
String Theory is a hot topic of physics and mathematics. For the former, it stands as a huge sandbox where the formulation of difficult problems can be simplified and their hard computations carried out. For the latter, it stands as a…
String theory is changing the relationship between mathematics and physics. The central role is played by the phenomenon of duality, which is intrinsic to quantum physics and abundant in string theory.
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…
In this note we follow the historical development of the ideas that led to the formulation of String Theory. We start from the inspired guess of Veneziano and its extension to the scattering of $N$ scalar particles, then we describe how the…
A few recollections and afterthoughts on the development of the string picture of fundamental interactions out of the S-matrix program.
We give an elementary introduction to classical and quantum bosonic string theory.
This is the written version of a set of introductory lectures on string theory.
After briefly reviewing basic concepts of perturbative string theory, we explain in simple terms some of the new findings that created excitement among the string physicists. These developments include non-perturbative dualities and a…
A polemical article evaluating string theory from the point of view of a quantum field theorist working in a mathematics department. Comments to the author are encouraged.