gauge field theories are cool

Since I don't post much, and don't get out much anyway, I guess you won't have noticed any absence. But this last week and a half, I have been learning some theoretical physics in Abingdon. I'm actually here to help 1st year graduate students learn, but even though this is the third year I've done it, I'm still learning myself. Fortunately the lectures are by professional theoreticians, so it's not the blind leading the blind.

It is completely exhausting, but mostly interesting. I'm supposed to help the students with the exercises, but sometimes I don't even get them done myself - which could be embarrassing but so far it's not been a problem. Today we got much easier problems, so I'm out early and can catch up with e-mail and LJ.

Now to the next lecture... If you ask nicely, I'll explain why gauge field theories are so cool, but there's no more time now.

Why gauge field theories are cool

Since juggzy responded to my prompting and asked...

( Relativistic quantum field theories are cool, because... )

( Gauge field theories are cool because... )

I'm still in the middle of the Standard Model and Phenomenology courses, so I may come back and correct all this later :-)