Quantum Field Theory: Perspective and Prospective

It has been said that `String theorists talk to string theorists and everyone else wonders what they are saying'. This book will be a great help to those researchers who are challenged by modern quantum field theory. Quantum field theory experienced a renaissance in the late 1960s. Here, participants in the Les Houches sessions of 1970/75, now key players in quantum field theory and its many impacts, assess developments in their field of interest and provide guidance to young researchers challenged by these developments, but overwhelmed by their complexities. The book is not a textbook on string theory, rather it is a complement to Polchinski's book on string theory. It is a survey of current problems which have their origin in quantum field theory. Booknews Most of the contributors are from France or the US, but other countries in eastern and western Europe are also represented, as are Japan, Brazil, Turkey, and Morocco. The 15 papers consider such topics as correlation functions through variational methods, string duality and matrix theory, the Peierls bracket, gauge theory and quantum gravity without ghosts, the exact solution of random tiling models, random matrices and Hall's fluids, and renormalization and renormalization groups from the discovery of ultraviolet divergences to the concept of effective field theories. The short presentations are not included. The seminars are listed but not summarized. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)