This book presents the essential aspects of relativistic quantum field theory, with minimal use of mathematics. It covers the development of quantum field theory from the original quantization of electromagnetic field to the gauge field theory of interactions among quarks and leptons. Aimed at both scientists and non-specialists, it requires only some rudimentary knowledge of the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formulation of Newtonian mechanics and a basic understanding of the special theory of relativity and quantum mechanics.

Coming into the 21st century, developments in three major areas of elementary particle physics — the electroweak theory with the Higgs mechanism, quantum chromodynamics, and string theory began to yield more and more concrete and successful results.Seeds of all these developments in contemporary particle physics were sowed by Nambu in prophetic lectures and papers from the 1960s-70s.The discovery of the Higgs-like scalar particle at the Large Hadron Collider in July 2011 was the climax for the idea of spontaneous symmetry breaking that Nambu had laid down at the beginning of the...

Coming into the 21st century, developments in three major areas of elementary particle physics — the electroweak theory with the Higgs mechanism, quantum chromodynamics, and string theory began to yield more and more concrete and successful results.Seeds of all these developments in contemporary particle physics were sowed by Nambu in prophetic lectures and papers from the 1960s-70s.The discovery of the Higgs-like scalar particle at the Large Hadron Collider in July 2011 was the climax for the idea of spontaneous symmetry breaking that Nambu had laid down at the beginning of the...