Now featuring a major new epilogue that brings the story up to date, this classic work by a Nobel Prize-winning physicist is "science writing at its best" (New York Review of Books). Translated in 18 languages.

Developing a theory that seamlessly combines relativity and quantum mechanics, the most important conceptual breakthroughs in twentieth century physics, has proved to be a difficult and ongoing challenge. This book details how two distinguished physicists and Nobel laureates have explored this theme in two lectures given in Cambridge, England, in 1986 to commemorate the famous British physicist Paul Dirac. Given for nonspecialists and undergraduates, the talks transcribed in Elementary Particles and the Laws of Physics focus on the fundamental problems of physics and the present state of our...

In The Quantum Theory of Fields, Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg combines his exceptional physical insight with his gift for clear exposition to provide a self-contained, comprehensive, and up-to-date introduction to quantum field theory. This is a two-volume work. Volume I introduces the foundations of quantum field theory. The development is fresh and logical throughout, with each step carefully motivated by what has gone before, and emphasizing the reasons why such a theory should describe nature. After a brief historical outline, the book begins anew with the principles about which we are...

The New York Times's James Glanz has called Steven Weinberg "perhaps the world's most authoritative proponent of the idea that physics is hurtling toward a 'final theory, ' a complete explanation of nature's particles and forces that will endure as the bedrock of all science forevermore. He is also a powerful writer of prose that can illuminate--and sting... He recently received the Lewis Thomas Prize, awarded to the researcher who best embodies 'the scientist as poet.'" Both the brilliant scientist and the provocative writer are fully present in this book as Weinberg pursues...

If standard gravitational theory is correct, then most of the matter in the universe is in an unidentified form which does not emit enough light to have been detected by current instrumentation. This book is the second editon of the lectures given at the 4th Jerusalem Winter School for Theoretical Physics, with new material added. The lectures are devoted to the "missing matter" problem in the universe, the search to understand dark matter. The goal of this volume is to make current research work on unseen matter accessible to students without prior experience in this area and to provide...

If standard gravitational theory is correct, then most of the matter in the universe is in an unidentified form which does not emit enough light to have been detected by current instrumentation. This review volume is the extended editon of the lectures given in the 4th Jerusalem Winter School of Theoretical Physics, with new materials added in. It devoted to the discussion of the so-called "missing matter" problem in the universe - dark matter and dark energy. The goal of this volume is to make current research work on unseen matter accessible to students of faculties without prior experience...

This book is unique in the detailed, self-contained, and comprehensive treatment that it gives to the ideas and formulas that are used and tested in modern cosmological research. It divides into two parts, each of which provides enough material for a one-semester graduate course. The first part deals chiefly with the isotropic and homogeneous average universe; the second part concentrates on the departures from the average universe. Throughout the book the author presents detailed analytic calculations of cosmological phenomena, rather than just report results obtained elsewhere by numerical...

In this second volume of The Quantum Theory of Fields, available for the first time in paperback, Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg continues his masterly expoistion of quantum theory. Volume 2 provides an up-to-date and self-contained account of the methods of quantum field theory, and how they have led to an understanding of the weak, strong, and electromagnetic interactions of the elementary particles. The presentation of modern mathematical methods is throughout interwoven with accounts of the problems of elementary particle physics and condensed matter physics to which they have been...