This important volume describes the wide-ranging scientific activities of Léon Van Hove, through commentaries by his colleagues and a selection of his most influential papers and documents. The reprinted papers are grouped by topic, starting from his early work in mathematics and theoretical and statistical physics, up to his very last contributions in elementary particle physics and multiparticle dynamics. Van Hove's career as teacher, director and science advisor in many European institutions is presented in sketches by friends and coworkers. A selection of his speeches and documented thoughts on science completes the volume.

The State of Physics, 1987; The Roles of Government; The Role of Industry: Knowledge and Skills; International Space Science; Physics at the Edge of the Earth; The Scanning Tunneling Microscope: Science and a New Era of Microtechnology; Artificially Structured Materials; Phases and Phase Transitions in Less Than Three Dimensions; The Fractional quantum Hall Effect; Modern High-Temperature Superconductivity; Superconductivity and its Applications (Modern and Traditional Approaches);Physics and Biology; Physics and the Information Age; Towards the Limits of Precision ad Accuracy in Measurement; High-Temperature Plasma Physics; Frontiers of Atomic Physics; Quarks and Gluons in Nuclear and Particle Physics; Particle Physics Beyond 1 TeV.

Widely regarded as a classic in its field, Constructing Quarks recounts the history of the post-war conceptual development of elementary-particle physics. Inviting a reappraisal of the status of scientific knowledge, Andrew Pickering suggests that scientists are not mere passive observers and reporters of nature. Rather they are social beings as well as active constructors of natural phenomena who engage in both experimental and theoretical practice. "A prodigious piece of scholarship that I can heartily recommend."—Michael Riordan, New Scientist "An admirable history. . . . Detailed and so accurate."—Hugh N. Pendleton, Physics Today