Introduction to "The Supersymmetric World: The Beginnings of The Theory"

Abstract

This is the foreword to the book we edited on the origins and early development of supersymmetry, which has been just issued by World Scientific. This book presents a view on the discovery of supersymmetry and pioneering investigations before summer 1976, mainly in the words of people who participated. It combines anecdotal descriptions and personal reminiscences with more technical summaries of the trailblazers, covering the birth of the theory and its first years -- origin of the idea, four-dimensional field theory realization, and supergravity. The eyewitnesses convey to us the drama of one of the deepest discoveries in theoretical physics in the 20-th century. Contributors: V. Akulov, R. Di Stefano, P. Fayet, S. Ferrara, G.-L. Gervais, N. Koretz-Golfand, E. Likhtman, M. Marinov, A. Neveu, L. O'Raifeartaigh, P. Ramond, B. Sakita, J. Schwarz, M. Sohnius, V. Soroka, J. Strathdee, D. Volkov, J. Wess, P. West.