These proceedings cover the most recent advances in these topics keeping in mind their impact on observable phenomena. In addition they review the status and prospects of all known gauge forces, including the experimental results on their validity.

In August/September 2001, a group of 75 physicists from 51 laboratories in 15 countries met in Erice, Italy to participate in the 39th Course of the International School of Subnuclear Physics. This volume constitutes the proceedings of that meeting. It focuses on the theoretical and phenomenological developments in string theory, as well as in all the other sectors of subnuclear physics. In addition, experimental highlights are presented and discussed.

This book is a unique report on the frontiers of subnuclear physics presented by world specialists in a clear, rigorous and simple way.The problem of the physical vacuum is presented in the opening lecture by T D Lee and the effective string-theoretical approach to cosmological vacua by G Veneziano. Effective theoretical approaches to light and heavy quark physics are presented by H Leutwyler and M Neubert. V N Gribov discusses the quark confinement and N Seiberg the problem of finding the effective actions in supersymmetric theories. A detailed analysis confronting electroweak theory with the high precision experimental data is presented by D Schildknecht. The great specialist in membrane theory, M Duff, presents the latest results of the 11-dimensional approach, while the finite temperature effective theories are discussed by M Shaposhnikov. The unification and the physics beyond the standard model constitute the content of the lectures by R Barbieri and D Nanopoulos. The experimental data from LEP and Hera are presented by M Pohl and G Wolf. N F Ramsey, the world specialist in the field, discusses how to explore the universe with atomic clocks. An elusive Z' is the subject of a specialised seminar by P Frampton.This volume contains the reports presented by a selected group of “new talents” on various topics in the field of subnuclear physics.

Contents:Hot Theoretical Topics:Harmony of Scattering Amplitudes: From QCD to N = 8 Supergravity (Z Bern)The Measure Problem in Cosmology (R Bousso)Black Holes and Qubits (M J Duff)Perturbative and Non-Perturbative Aspects of N = 8 Supergravity (S Ferrara)The Gravitational S-Matrix: Erice Lectures (S B Giddings)Seminars on Specialized Topics:Direct Evidence of Oscillation from II to III Family Neutrinos (Y Declais)Probing the Small Distance Structure of Canonical Quantum Gravity using the Conformal Group (G 't Hooft)The QGCW Project — Technological Challenges to Study the New World (H Wenninger)Highlights from Laboratories:The LHC and Beyond — Status, Results and Perspectives (R D Heuer)Highlights from FERMILAB (P J Oddone)Anti- and Hypermatter Research at the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research FAIR (H Stoecker)Highlights from BNL-RHIC (S Vigdor)Highlights from GRAN SASSO (L Votano)Highlights from ISS-AMS (S C C Ting)Special Sessions for New Talents:Four-Qubit Entanglement: Lessons of a Black Hole (L Borsten)A Simple Way to Take into Account Back Reaction on Pair Creation (P Burda)Search for a High-Mass Higgs Boson at the Tevatron (D Gerbaudo)Twisted Strings in Extended Abelian Higgs Model (A Lukács)Positronium Hyperfine Splitting (A Miyazaki)How I Failed to Find any New Fundamental Particles (M Mulhearn) Readership: Graduate students, researchers and academics in the field of subnuclear physics. Keywords:Black Holes;QCD;SUSY;QED;Collider;Attractors

If one knows the exact properties of a vacuum, one can predict everything. This book reviews and discusses our present understanding of “nothing”. The main results from LEP, HERA and FERMILAB are presented. In addition, new projects are discussed, as well as the current status of Higgs phenomenology and the search for supersymmetry at the major laboratories.

In August/September 2002, a group of 78 physicists from 50 laboratories in 17 countries met in Erice, Italy, to participate in the 40th Course of the International School of Subnuclear Physics. The purpose of the School was to focus attention on the theoretical and phenomenological developments in gauge theories, as well as in all the other sectors of subnuclear physics. Experimental highights from the most relevant sources of new data were presented and discussed, including the latest news on theoretical developments in quantizing the gravitational forces.This volume constitutes the proceedings of the School. It is dedicated to the memory of Victor Frederick Weisskopf, a founder — together with John Stewart Bell, Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett and Isidor Isaac Rabi — of the “Ettore Majorana” Centre for Scientific Culture, this School being the first of its 114 Schools now in existence.