Geometry Motivated by Physics
Abstract
It is a great honor to be invited for this important occasion. The first time I had met Prof. Yang was in the fall term of 1971 when he gave a series of public lectures at Stony Brook. I was deeply impressed by the intuitive power of physics as described by the great master. In the following years, I saw the impact of Yang-Mills theory on mathematics. It was exciting for a geometer to study the effect of physical intuition in our field and what we could do for physics in return. I spent the next thirty years exploring such an interaction. It was a fruitful research: from general relativity, to gauge theory and to string theory. The influence of Prof. Yang is very deep and I am grateful to him. In this note, I will explain such a personal experience. The choice of topic is therefore rather subjective...
- Publication:
-
Symmetry and Modern Physics
- Pub Date:
- September 2003
- DOI:
- 10.1142/9789812795083_0008
- Bibcode:
- 2003smp..conf..113Y