The success of the standard model in explaining low energy (≈ 100GeV) physics within the framework of spontaneously broken Yang-Mills theory has given physicists the hope that the Einstein dream of a unified theory of fundamental interactions might be achieved using geometrical methods of local symmetry principles supplemented by consistency requirements such as renormalization, unitarity and, most crucially, compatibility with present low energy data.Merging these principles with the quantum-mechanical notions of spin and statistics led physicists further to develop new theories in the...

Steven Weinberg (1933-2021) was a theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate who contributed tremendously to particle physics. Until his death, Weinberg was regarded by many as the greatest living scientist. His most well-known work was the formulation of electroweak theory for which he earned the 1979 Nobel Prize with Sheldon Glashow and Abdus Salam, but his research spanned many other fields. Examples include effective Lagrangians, quantum chromodynamics, supersymmetry, quantum gravity, and cosmology.Weinberg's publications were renowned not only for their profundity and originality but also...