Abstract :
This is a personal view of 1 the developments from the invention of the concept of gauge invariance to our present understanding that it provides the fundamental principle for the construction of theories of forces between the basic blocs of matter. This journey was full of twists and turns and marked by fascinating moments. It is these aspects of the development of gauge theories that I will concentrate on.
Although Yang-Mills theories provide the basic framework for both strong and electroweak interactions, my contribution concerns almost exclusively the former only.
