In August/September 2001, a group of 75 physicists from 51 laboratories in 15 countries met in Erice, Italy to participate in the 39th Course of the International School of Subnuclear Physics. This volume constitutes the proceedings of that meeting. It focuses on the theoretical and phenomenological developments in string theory, as well as in all the other sectors of subnuclear physics. In addition, experimental highlights are presented and discussed.

In August/September 2001, a group of 75 physicists from 51 laboratories in 15 countries met in Erice, Italy to participate in the 39th Course of the International School of Subnuclear Physics. This volume constitutes the proceedings of that meeting. It focuses on the theoretical and phenomenological developments in string theory, as well as in all the other sectors of subnuclear physics. In addition, experimental highlights are presented and discussed.

The main focus of this year's Proceedings of the 53rd Course of the International School of Subnuclear Physics is the future of physics, including the new frontiers in other fields.

This volume is a collection of lectures given by distinguished physicists from around the world, covering the most recent advances in theoretical physics and the latest results from current experimental facilities.Following one of the principal aims of the School ? to encourage and promote young physicists to achieve recognition at an international level ? the students who distinguished themselves for the excellence of their research were given the opportunity to publish their presentations in this volume.

Annotation Focuses on the theoretical investigation of several basic unity issues.

String theory is a model of fundamental physics whose building blocks are one-dimensional extended objects called strings, rather than the zero-dimensional point particles that form the basis for the standard model of particle physics. The phrase is often used as shorthand for Superstring theory, as well as related theories such as M-theory. By replacing the point-like particles with strings, an apparently consistent quantum theory of gravity emerges. Moreover, it may be possible to 'unify' the known natural forces (gravitational, electromagnetic, weak nuclear and strong nuclear) by describing them with the same set of equations. Studies of string theory have revealed that it predicts higher-dimensional objects called branes. String theory strongly suggests the existence of ten or eleven (in M-theory) space-time dimensions, as opposed to the usual four (three spatial and one temporal) used in relativity theory.

In August/September 2002, a group of 78 physicists from 50 laboratories in 17 countries met in Erice, Italy, to participate in the 40th Course of the International School of Subnuclear Physics. The purpose of the School was to focus attention on the theoretical and phenomenological developments in gauge theories, as well as in all the other sectors of subnuclear physics. Experimental highights from the most relevant sources of new data were presented and discussed, including the latest news on theoretical developments in quantizing the gravitational forces.This volume constitutes the proceedings of the School. It is dedicated to the memory of Victor Frederick Weisskopf, a founder — together with John Stewart Bell, Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett and Isidor Isaac Rabi — of the “Ettore Majorana” Centre for Scientific Culture, this School being the first of its 114 Schools now in existence.

Contents:Hot Theoretical Topics:Harmony of Scattering Amplitudes: From QCD to N = 8 Supergravity (Z Bern)The Measure Problem in Cosmology (R Bousso)Black Holes and Qubits (M J Duff)Perturbative and Non-Perturbative Aspects of N = 8 Supergravity (S Ferrara)The Gravitational S-Matrix: Erice Lectures (S B Giddings)Seminars on Specialized Topics:Direct Evidence of Oscillation from II to III Family Neutrinos (Y Declais)Probing the Small Distance Structure of Canonical Quantum Gravity using the Conformal Group (G 't Hooft)The QGCW Project — Technological Challenges to Study the New World (H Wenninger)Highlights from Laboratories:The LHC and Beyond — Status, Results and Perspectives (R D Heuer)Highlights from FERMILAB (P J Oddone)Anti- and Hypermatter Research at the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research FAIR (H Stoecker)Highlights from BNL-RHIC (S Vigdor)Highlights from GRAN SASSO (L Votano)Highlights from ISS-AMS (S C C Ting)Special Sessions for New Talents:Four-Qubit Entanglement: Lessons of a Black Hole (L Borsten)A Simple Way to Take into Account Back Reaction on Pair Creation (P Burda)Search for a High-Mass Higgs Boson at the Tevatron (D Gerbaudo)Twisted Strings in Extended Abelian Higgs Model (A Lukács)Positronium Hyperfine Splitting (A Miyazaki)How I Failed to Find any New Fundamental Particles (M Mulhearn) Readership: Graduate students, researchers and academics in the field of subnuclear physics. Keywords:Black Holes;QCD;SUSY;QED;Collider;Attractors