Physical law and the quest for mathematical understanding
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- by Edward Witten PDF
- Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 40 (2003), 21-29 Request permission
Abstract:
The theoretical physics of the first quarter of the twentieth century —centering around relativity theory and nonrelativistic quantum mechanics—has had a broad influence mathematically. The main achievement of theoretical physics in the following half-century was the development of quantum field theory or QFT. Yet the mathematical influence of QFT still belongs largely to the $21^{st}$ century, because its mathematical foundations are still not well-understood.References
Additional Information
- Edward Witten
- Affiliation: Department of Physics, Cal Tech, Pasadena, California 91125; and CIT-USC Center for Theoretical Physics, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089
- Address at time of publication: School of Natural Sciences, Institute for Advanced Study, Olden Lane, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
- MR Author ID: 183820
- Email: witten@ias.edu
- Received by editor(s): August 3, 2000
- Received by editor(s) in revised form: February 21, 2002
- Published electronically: October 9, 2002
- Additional Notes: This work was supported in part by NSF Grant PHY-9513835 and the Caltech Discovery Fund
- © Copyright 2002 American Mathematical Society
- Journal: Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 40 (2003), 21-29
- MSC (2000): Primary 51P05, 81T30
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1090/S0273-0979-02-00969-2
- MathSciNet review: 1943130