Panorama of theoretical physics

We shall start this panorama of theoretical physics by giving an overview of physics in general, this branch of knowledge that has been taken since the scientific revolution as the archetype of the scientific discipline. We shall then proceed in showing in what way theoretical physics from Newton to Maxwell, Einstein, Feynman and the like, in all modesty, could be considered as the ticking heart of physics. By its special mode of inquiry and its tantalizing successes, it has capturing the very spirit of the scientific method, and indeed it has been taken as a role model by other disciplines all the way from the “hard” ones to the social sciences. We shall then review how much we know today of the world of matter, both in term of its basic content and in the way it is structured. We will then present the dreams of today's theoretical physics as a way of penetrating into its psyche, discovering in this way its aspirations and longing in much the same way that a child's dreams tell us about his yearning and craving. Yet our understanding of matter has been going in the past decades through a crisis of sort. As a necessary antidote, we shall thus discuss the pitfalls of dreams pushed too far….