Advances in Fundamental Physics: Prelude to Paradigm Shift, 11th International Symposium Honoring Noted Mathematical Physicist Jean-Pierre Vigier

PREFACE The 11th international symposium, Advances in Fundamental Physics, Prelude to Paradigm Shift honoring noted mathematical physicist Jean-Pierre Vigier, was held Monday, 6th August to Thursday, August 9 th , 2018 in Liège, Belgium. The Vigier series began in 1995, with the first of two conferences held at York University in Toronto, Canada. It was one of a handful of such series, including CASYS, PIRT and ANPA, which emerged in the last decades of the 20 th -century to cover areas of fundamental physics which at that time had no obvious outlet for discussion. These are vital areas for discussion now, but at the time, particle physics was thought solved by string theory and supersymmetry, and gravity by various approaches to quantizing general relativity. A surprise may occur with the looming experimental awakening of the imminent paradigm shift; current thinking, for all practical purposes, insists that gravity must be quantized. This arises from thecurrent belief that the quantum mechanical stochastic foam is the impenetrable basement of reality.String theory, an evolution of Kaluza-Klein theory, has been developed as the putative theory of quantum gravity; but there is no a priori reason that gravity must be quantized: