Concepts of Particle Physics. Kurt Gottfried and Victor F. Weisskopf. Oxford University Press, New York, 1986. Volume I: 208 pp., illus. $13.95 PB. Volume H: 432 pp., illus. $45 HB.
During the last 15 years, significant theoretical and experimental advances have been made in our understanding of elementary particles and their interactions. An elegant fundamental theory of strong, weak and electromagnetic interactions based on the principles of quantum field theory and local gauge invariance has emerged. It incorporates the observed symmetries of quarks and leptons and correctly predicted weak neutral currents as well as the existence of gluons and the recently discovered W and Z intermediate vector bosons. It has earned the title "standard model," a label that describes its acceptance by the physics community as a standard against which future experimental findings and alternative theories are to be compared.
More recently, a new generation of high energy accelerators has...
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