The Problems of Physics

Is the universe infinite, or does it have an edge beyond which there is, quite literally, nothing? Do we live in the only possible universe? Why does it have one time and three space dimensions - or does it? What is it made of? What does it mean when we hear that a new particle has been discovered? Will quantum mechanics eventually break down and give way to a totally new description of the world, one whose features we cannot even begin to imagine?
This book aims to give the non-specialist reader a general overview of what physicists think they do and do not know in some representative frontier areas of contemporary physics. After sketching out the historical background, A. J. Leggett goes on to discuss the current situation and some of the open problems of cosmology, high-energy physics, and condensed-matter physics. Unlike most other accounts, this book focuses not so much on recent achievements as on the fundamental problems at the heart of the subject, and emphasizes the provisional nature of our present understanding of things.

This book focuses not so much on recent achievements as on the fundamental problems at the heart of the subject.

Is the universe infinite, or does it have an edge beyond which there is, quite literally, nothing? Do we live in the only possible universe? Why does it have one time and three space dimensions - or does it? What is it made of? What does it mean when we hear that a new particle has been discovered? Will quantum mechanics eventually break down and give way to a totally new description of the world, one whose features we cannot even begin to imagine?
This book aims to give the non-specialist reader a general overview of what physicists think they do and do not know in some representative frontier areas of contemporary physics. After sketching out the historical background, A. J. Leggett goes on to discuss the current situation and some of the open problems of cosmology, high-energy physics, and condensed-matter physics. Unlike most other accounts, this book focuses not so much on recent achievements as on the fundamental problems at the heart of the subject, and emphasizes the provisional nature of our present understanding of things.

A.J. Leggett Macarthur Professor and Professor of Physics University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Anthony J.Leggett was born in London, England in March 1938.He attended Balliol College, Oxford where he majored in Literae Humaniores (classical languages and literature, philosophy and Greco-Roman history), and thereafter Merton College, Oxford where he took a second undergraduate degree in Physics. He completed a D.Phil.(Ph.D.) degree in theoretical physics under the supervision of D.ter Haar. After postdoctoral research in Urbana, Kyoto and elsewhere he joined the faculty of the University of Sussex (UK) in 1967, being promoted to Reader in 1971 and to Professor in 1978. In 1983 he became John D. and Catherine T. Macarthur Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a position he currently holds. His principal research interests lie in the areas of condensed matter physics, particularly high-temperature superconductivity,and the foundations of quantum mechanics.