String theories seem to have created a breakthrough in theoretical physics. At long last a unfied theory of all the fundamental interactions, including gravity, looks possible. This, according to theorist Stephen Hawking, will mark the end of theoretical physics as we have known it, since we will then have a single consistent theory within which to explain all natural phenomena from elementary particles to galactic superclusters. Strings themselves are extremely tiny entities, smaller than the Planck scale, which form loops whose vibrational harmonics can be used to model all the standard elementary particles. Of course the mathematical complexities of the theory are daunting, and physicists are still at a very early stage in understanding how strings and their theoretical cousins superstrings can be used. This proceedings volume gives an overview of the intense recent work in the field and reports latest developments.

Inhalt
I String Theories: General Aspects.- Uniqueness of Superstrings.- String Theory and Quantum Gravity.- II String Field Theories.- Construction of Witten's String Field Theory.- Gauge String Field Theory.- III Loop Corrections and Conformai Field Theory.- String Multi-loop Corrections to Equations of Motion.- Differential Equations for Conformai Characters in Moduli Space.- IV Further Mathematical Developments.- Analytic Fields on Riemann Surfaces.- On the Connection Between Zamolodchikov's W-Algebras and Kac-Moody Algebras.- V Related Topics.- Some Remarks on Random Dynamics.- Index of Contributors.