Symmetry and invariance in physics and their relation to conservation laws, both classical and quantum: that's the program, for the most part. Oh, yeh, and Schrödinger's Cat, also. And A Serious Man, peripherally, as a sort of springboard. Remember in the movie there is a very unusual form of the Schrödinger's Cat quantum superposition equation on the board in the non-dream college classroom scene? An unusually delicate phase relationship is involved in that particular equation.
How did we get to where we are now in physics? Where are we now, anyway? We're deeply into quantum field theory (QFT), and looking to make it work also for gravity. I don't like quantum field theory and only barely understand it, so my plan now is to temporarily, in the next few posts, describe it as if I do like it! I'll be a gauge-invariance/QFT cheerleader for the next month or so and see where that leads. Let's hear it for those hardworking virtual particles and perturbation expansions!
