TY - BOOK ID - 37394976 TI - The landscape of theoretical physics : a global view : from point particles to the brane world and beyond in search of a unifying principle PY - 2001 SN - 1280206918 9786610206919 0306471361 0792370066 PB - Dordrecht ; Boston : Kluwer Academic Publishers, DB - UniCat KW - Physics. KW - Mathematical physics. KW - Quantum theory. KW - Functional analysis. KW - Algebra. KW - Theoretical, Mathematical and Computational Physics. KW - Elementary Particles, Quantum Field Theory. KW - Functional Analysis. KW - Quantum Physics. KW - Associative Rings and Algebras. KW - Mathematics KW - Mathematical analysis KW - Functional calculus KW - Calculus of variations KW - Functional equations KW - Integral equations KW - Quantum dynamics KW - Quantum mechanics KW - Quantum physics KW - Physics KW - Mechanics KW - Thermodynamics KW - Elementary particles (Physics). KW - Quantum field theory. KW - Quantum physics. KW - Associative rings. KW - Rings (Algebra). KW - Algebraic rings KW - Ring theory KW - Algebraic fields KW - Rings (Algebra) KW - Elementary particles (Physics) KW - High energy physics KW - Nuclear particles KW - Nucleons KW - Nuclear physics KW - Physical mathematics KW - Relativistic quantum field theory KW - Field theory (Physics) KW - Quantum theory KW - Relativity (Physics) KW - Natural philosophy KW - Philosophy, Natural KW - Physical sciences KW - Dynamics UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:37394976 AB - Today many important directions of research are being pursued more or less independently of each other. These are, for instance, strings and mem branes, induced gravity, embedding of spacetime into a higher dimensional space, the brane world scenario, the quantum theory in curved spaces, Fock Schwinger proper time formalism, parametrized relativistic quantum the ory, quantum gravity, wormholes and the problem of “time machines”, spin and supersymmetry, geometric calculus based on Clifford algebra, various interpretations of quantum mechanics including the Everett interpretation, and the recent important approach known as “decoherence”. A big problem, as I see it, is that various people thoroughly investigate their narrow field without being aware of certain very close relations to other fields of research. What we need now is not only to see the trees but also the forest. In the present book I intend to do just that: to carry out a first approximation to a synthesis of the related fundamental theories of physics. I sincerely hope that such a book will be useful to physicists. From a certain viewpoint the book could be considered as a course in the oretical physics in which the foundations of all those relevant fundamental theories and concepts are attempted to be thoroughly reviewed. Unsolved problems and paradoxes are pointed out. I show that most of those ap proaches have a common basis in the theory of unconstrained membranes. The very interesting and important concept of membrane space, the tensor calculus in and functional transformations in are discussed. ER -