Edouard Brézin is professor emeritus at the University Pierre and Marie Curie and an honorary professor at the Ecole Polytechnique. He has taught at many universities outside France, notably, Princeton (1971-72), Harvard (Loeb lectures, 1974-75 and 1982), Oxford (1983) and Amsterdam (Van der Waals Chair, 2000). He is a member of the French Academy of Sciences.

“This book is an account of some of the uncertainties of contemporary physics, and it aims to show that the questions raised result from a process of internal logic that has led us inevitably to where we are now.
“It seemed to us that we could recount some of the queries that face present-day physicists, using words alone, without equations, and without requiring readers to study difficult works as a prerequisite,” writes Edouard Brézin.


• At the initiative of the Academy of Sciences, ten eminent French scientists share with us the extraordinary advances of contemporary physics.

• This is a new, revised and enlarged edition.

• “A remarkable book,” La Recherche