Speaker: Alexander Blum (MPIWG Berlin)

Title: On the History of Quantum Field Theory: Origins, Transformations, Problems

Abstract:

This talk will provide an overview of the history of QFT from its earliest beginnings in the work of Planck and Einstein on heat radiation around 1900 to the renormalization of quantum electrodynamics in the late 1940s. A special emphasis will be placed on the relation between QFT and quantum mechanics, showing how, after a long period of co-evolution, QFT to some extent became a framework of its own, with different paradigmatic problems (scattering processes) and different foundational issues (mathematical consistency).