The book explains in a precise and complete manner how elementary particle physics has evolved over the past 50 years. The historical development of the ideas that have shaped our thinking about the ultimate constituents of matter is traced out. The author has been associated with some of the originators of elementary particle theory and has made significant contributions to the field. Here, he gives a first-person description of some of the main developments leading to our present view of the universe.

Proceedings of a NATO ASI held in Cargese, France, August 1-13, 1994

An exciting new edition of a classic text

In a knowledge-based society, research into fundamental physics plays a vital role not only in the enhancement of human knowledge but also in the development of new technology that affects everyday life.The international symposium series Frontiers of Fundamental Physics (FFP) regularly brings together eminent scholars and researchers working in various areas in physics to exchange expertise, ideas, results, and new research perspectives. The twelfth such symposium, FFP12, took place at the University of Udine, Italy, and covered diverse fields of research: astrophysics, high energy physics and particle physics, theoretical physics, gravitation and cosmology, condensed matter physics, statistical physics, computational physics, and mathematical physics. Importantly, it also devoted a great deal of attention to physics education research, teacher training in modern physics, and popularization of physics. The high scientific level of FFP12 was guaranteed by the careful selection made by scientific coordinators from among 250 submissions from 28 countries across the world. During the three days of the conference, nine general talks were delivered in plenary sessions, 29 invited talks were given in specific topic areas, and 59 oral presentations were made. This book presents a selection of the best contributions at FFP12 with the aim of acquainting readers with the most important recent advances in fundamental physics and in physics education and teacher development.

The theoretical understanding of elementary particle interactions has under gone a revolutionary change during the past one and a half decades. The spontaneously broken gauge theories, which in the 1970s emerged as a prime candidate for the description of electro-weak (as weIl as strong) interactions, have been confirmed by the discovery of neutral weak currents as weIl as the w- and Z-bosons. We now have a field theory of electro-weak interactions at energy scales below 100 GeV-the Glashow-Weinberg-Salam theory. It is a renormalizable theory which enables us to do calculations without en countering unnecessary divergences. The burning question now is: Wh at lies ahead at the next level of unification? As we head into the era of supercolliders and ultrahigh energy machines to answer this question, many ap, pealing possi bilities exist: left-right symmetry, technicolor, compositeness, grand unifica ti on, supersymmetry, supergravity, Kaluza-Klein models, and most recently superstrings that even unify gravity along with other interactions. Experi ments will decide if any one or any combination of these is to be relevant in the description of physics at the higher energies. As an outcome of our con fidence in the possible scenerios for elementary particle physics, we have seen our understanding of the early uni verse improve significantly.

The Olympia conference Frontiers of Fundamental Physics was a gathering of about hundred scientists who carryon their research in conceptually important areas of physical science (they do "fundamental physics"). Most of them were physicists, but also historians and philosophers of science were well represented. An important fraction of the participants could be considered "heretical" because they disagreed with the validity of one or several fundamental assumptions of modern physics. Common to all participants was an excellent scientific level coupled with a remarkable intellectual honesty: we are proud to present to the readers this certainly unique book. Alternative ways of considering fundamental matters should of course be vitally important for the progress of science, unless one wanted to admit that physics at the end of the XXth century has already obtained the final truth, a very unlikely possibility even if one accepted the doubtful idea of the existence of a "final" truth. The merits of the Olympia conference should therefore not be judged a priori in a positive or in a negative way depending on one's refusal or acceptance, respectively, but considered after reading the actual of basic principles of contemporary science, new proposals and evidences there presented. They seem very important to us.

Frontiers in Physics – FPHY – is now in its eighth year. Up to last year, the journal received a slowly increasing trickle of manuscripts, and then during the summer… Boom! The number of manuscripts we receive started increasing exponentially. This is of course a signal to us who are associated with the journal that we are on the right track to build a first-rate journal spanning the entire field of physics. And it is not the only signal. We also see it in other indicators such as the number of views and downloads, Impact Factor and the Cite Score. Should we be surprised at this increase? If I were to describe FPHY in one word, it would be “innovation”. Attaching the names of the reviewers that have endorsed publication permanently to the published paper is certainly in this class. It ensures that the reviewers are accountable; furthermore, the level of transparency this implies ensures that any conflict of interest is detected at the very beginning of the process. The review process itself is innovative. After an initial review that proceeds traditionally, the reviewers and authors enter a back-and-forth dialog that irons out any misunderstanding. The reviewers retain their anonymity throughout the process. The entire review process and any question concerning editorial decisions is fully in the hands of active scientists. The Frontiers staff is not allowed to make any such decision. They oversee the process and make sure that the manuscript and the process leading to publication or rejection upholds the standard. FPHY is of course a gold open access journal. This is the only scientific publication model that is compatible with the information revolution. A journal’s prestige is traditionally associated with how difficult it is to publish there. Exclusivity as criterion for desirability, is a mechanism we know very well from the consumer market. However, is this criterion appropriate for scientific publishing? It is almost by definition not possible to predict the importance of a new idea – otherwise it would not have been new. So, why should journals make decisions on publishing based on predicting the possible importance of a given work. This can only be properly assessed after publication. Frontiers has removed “importance” from the list of criteria for publication. That the work is new, is another matter: the work must be new and scientifically correct. It would seem that removing the criterion of “importance” would be a risky one, but it turns out not to be. The Specialty Chief Editors who lead the 18 sections that constitute FPHY, have made this selection of papers published in FPHY in 2019. We have chosen the papers that we have found most striking. Even though this is far from a random selection, they do give a good idea of what PFHY is about. Enjoy! We certainly did while making this selection. Professor Alex Hansen (Field Chief Editor)