Monalisa shared her views on particle physics, its areas of research, etc.
The main points that she covered in her talk were:
1) introduction of particle physics as being an exciting area of research that involves both using and extending the most fundamental theories to understand the basic structure of the universe.
2) its history starting from its birth in 1897 with J. J. Thomson's discovery of electrons, till today where all the theoreticla and experiemental developments are digested and summarized in a single theory called the Standard Model (SM).
3) Triumphs of SM: its prediction o fhte particles properties and inclusion of exactly three families of quarks and leptons has strong experimental support.
4) Shortingcoming of SM: At a deeper scientific level this model has a fundamental eakness, referred to as electroweak symmetry breaking. The most serious criticism of the SM has to do with gravity and the origin of mass.
5) Current areas of research: Most of the research activity is done on the study of extensions of the SM. Comlementary to these studies are also proceeding in leptonic mixing & CP violation, along with data coming from b-factories.
