Humanity has always sought to discover the universal principles underlying all natural phenomena. Our confidence in the existence of a unified theory rests on the fact that everything in the Universe, including ourselves, is made of elementary particles, and particles of each type behave exactly the same way in any observable part of the Universe. This allows us to extend our knowledge of the microcosm to the entire cosmos and attempt to answer the eternal question: why is the world structured the way it is, and not otherwise?

The laws governing the behavior of elementary particles form the foundation of microphysics. If we add the principles of modern cosmology—specifically the premise that roughly 15 billion years ago, the Universe emerged from a microscopic, rapidly expanding hot fireball—we encompass all the fundamental laws of nature. They lie at the core not only of physics but also of astronomy, chemistry, biology—essentially all natural sciences. When the English physicist Paul Dirac formulated the quantum theory of the electron in 1928, he proudly noted that his equation explained most of physics and the whole of chemistry.

Since then, science has made tremendous leaps. We have discovered the quantum laws governing electromagnetic, weak, and strong nuclear interactions, and we have taken significant steps toward constructing a Grand Unified Theory. This became possible after uncovering the general principles obeyed by all physical fields. Thus, quantum field theory was born.

To test these theories, humanity builds ultra-powerful accelerators, notably the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)—the largest experimental facility in the world, spanning over 70 square kilometers, built using the most advanced engineering technologies and scientific breakthroughs.

By studying quantum mechanics, you will encounter mind-bending concepts such as quantum uncertainty and wave-particle duality, quantum tunneling and the Pauli exclusion principle, antimatter, and virtual particles. In the specialized courses taught at our department, you will learn how particles can be created from the vacuum, how matter fields are quantized, and how electric, magnetic, and weak forces unify into a single electroweak interaction. You will gain insights into the quantum properties of the vacuum and the nature of dark matter, quantum teleportation and entanglement, black hole evaporation, and much more.

The principles of quantum mechanics, relativity, and causality form the foundation of quantum field theory. It is widely believed that the full diversity of natural phenomena can be described within the framework of these principles. Many predictions of quantum field theory are in excellent agreement with experiments. For example, in quantum electrodynamics, the theoretical and experimental values of the electron's magnetic moment match to ten decimal places. This is the most precise agreement between theory and experiment in all of physics!

At the same time, the nature of elementary particles and the structure of the vacuum are not yet fully understood, and occasionally, the discrepancies between theory and observation become perplexingly large. This indicates that quantum field theory is not yet a completely finished science (like many other branches of physics) but continues to develop intensively, constantly enriched by new ideas.