Summary of the Course: What 1 Have Learned

Abstract

Some of my friends here told me that giving the Summary of the Conference is not only a great honor, it is also a heavy burden. I replied that I did not undertake to review what we were taught, only what I have learned. I now find that even that is too much for me. I have learned enormously much and am most grateful. The review of it, in any detail, would tax everybody’s patience and it is not clear that it would do much good: my presentation would have, in most cases, less clarity than the original one. Hence, instead of a review of the various presentations—we had altogether 28 speakers— I’ll try to give the general impression which I gained on the status of our subject: particle physics. Let me add, as long as we are on the subject, that the intermission discussions were of particular value to me and my appreciation of the discussion of the speakers is almost parallelled by my appreciation of the informal discussions with the colleagues. Often, a few explanatory words clarified the presentation of subjects which I could not understand at all. In fact, I am tempted to suggest that the intermissions between speeches be made a bit longer. In addition, a course summarising the present status of the subject would be very useful—almost no one is familiar with every aspect of it. Unfortunately, those who could give such a course are too busy anyway.