Chapter 1
Introduction
Herwig Schopper
Since old ages it has been one of the noble aspirations of humankind to understand
the world in which we are living. In addition to our immediate environment, planet
earth, two more remote frontiers have attracted interest: the infinitely small and
the infinitely large. A flood of new experimental and theoretical results obtained
during the past decades has provided a completely new picture of the micro- and
macrocosm and surprisingly intimate relations have been discovered between the
two. It turned out that the understanding of elementary particles and the forces
acting between them is extremely relevant for our perception of the cosmological
development. Quite often scientific research is supported because it is the basis
for technical progress and for the material well-being of humans. The exploration
of the microcosm and the universe contributes to this goal only indirectly by the
development of better instruments and new techniques. However, it tries to answer
some fundamental questions which are essential to understand the origins, the
environment and the conditions for the existence of humankind and thus is an
essential part of the cultural heritage.
One of the fundamental questions concerns the nature of matter, the substance
of which the stars, the planets and living creatures are made, or to put it in another
way—can the many phenomena which we observe in nature be explained on the
basis of a few elementary building blocks and forces which act between them. The
first attempts go back 2000 years when the Greek philosophers speculated about
The original version of this chapter was revised. A correction to this chapter can be found at https://
doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38207-0_11
H. Schopper ()
CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
e-mail: Herwig.Schopper@cern.ch
© The Author(s) 2020, corrected publication 2020
H. Schopper (ed.), Particle Physics Reference Library,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38207-0_1
1
Introduction
Herwig Schopper
Since old ages it has been one of the noble aspirations of humankind to understand
the world in which we are living. In addition to our immediate environment, planet
earth, two more remote frontiers have attracted interest: the infinitely small and
the infinitely large. A flood of new experimental and theoretical results obtained
during the past decades has provided a completely new picture of the micro- and
macrocosm and surprisingly intimate relations have been discovered between the
two. It turned out that the understanding of elementary particles and the forces
acting between them is extremely relevant for our perception of the cosmological
development. Quite often scientific research is supported because it is the basis
for technical progress and for the material well-being of humans. The exploration
of the microcosm and the universe contributes to this goal only indirectly by the
development of better instruments and new techniques. However, it tries to answer
some fundamental questions which are essential to understand the origins, the
environment and the conditions for the existence of humankind and thus is an
essential part of the cultural heritage.
One of the fundamental questions concerns the nature of matter, the substance
of which the stars, the planets and living creatures are made, or to put it in another
way—can the many phenomena which we observe in nature be explained on the
basis of a few elementary building blocks and forces which act between them. The
first attempts go back 2000 years when the Greek philosophers speculated about
The original version of this chapter was revised. A correction to this chapter can be found at https://
doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38207-0_11
H. Schopper ()
CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
e-mail: Herwig.Schopper@cern.ch
© The Author(s) 2020, corrected publication 2020
H. Schopper (ed.), Particle Physics Reference Library,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38207-0_1
1