Abstract

Why would anybody need to study quantum field theory?

The talk is going to be based loosely and partly on my textbook “Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell.” At present, I am completing a popular book based, in turn, loosely and partly on this talk.

We will discuss deeply fascinating aspects of quantum field theory at the colloquium level.

About the speaker:

Anthony Zee holds a joint appointment as a permanent member of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics and a professor of physics at the University of California at Santa Barbara. While his main areas of research involve cosmology and the fundamental structure of matter, he is known in the theoretical physics community for his unusual breadth of interests, from condensed matter physics to biophysics. After graduating from Princeton, Zee obtained his PhD from Harvard in 1970, supervised by Sidney Coleman. During 1970–72 and 1977–78, he was at the Institute for Advanced Study. From 1973 to 1978, he was an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow. In his first year as assistant professor at Princeton, Zee had Ed Witten as his teaching assistant.

Professor Zee has authored or co-authored more than 200 scientific publications and several books. He has written on particle physics, condensed matter physics, anomalies in physics, random matrix theory, superconductivity, the quantum Hall effect, and other topics in theoretical and mathematical physics.

A knowledge of quantum field theory is not required to understand the talk.