The Quantum Geometer’s Universe: Particles, Interactions and Topology

With the two most profound conceptual revolutions of XX century physics, quantum mechanics and relativity, which have culminated into relativistic spacetime geometry and quantum gauge field theory as the principles for gravity and the three other known fundamental interactions, the physicist of the XXI century has inherited an unfinished symphony: the unification of the quantum and the continuum. As an invitation to tomorrow’s quantum geometers who must design the new rulers by which to size up the Universe at those scales where the smallest meets the largest, these lectures review the basic principles of today’s conceptual framework, and highlight by way of simple examples the interplay that presently exists between the quantum world of particle interactions and the classical world of geometry and topology. To be published in the Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Contemporary Problems in Mathematical Physics, Institut de Mathématiques et de Sciences Physiques (IMSP), Université d’Abomey-Calavi, Cotonou, Republic of Benin October 28st November 2th, 2001