Benchmarks on the brane

Abstract

Branes now occupy center stage in theoretical physics as microscopic components of M-theory, as the higher-dimensional progenitors of black holes and as entire universes in their own right. Their history has been a checkered one, however. Here we list some of the milestones, starting with Dirac's 1962 paper. Asim Barut was an early pioneer.

Comments: Asim Barut Memorial Lecture, Bogazici University, Istanbul, October 2002. Added references