ACADEMIC TRAINING LECTURE

The basic formalism of the Standard Model will be reviewed, and the limited state of our knowledge before the start-up of LEP will be recalled. Neutrino counting at LEP will be compared with astrophysical and cosmological constraints. The interpretation of precision electroweak data will be discussed, including their predictions for the top quark and the Higgs boson, and the hints they offer for the future direction beyond the Standard Model: probably a weakly-interacting theory that may be extrapolated up to a grand unification scale. Topics in QCD and heavy-flavour physics will be discussed briefly, and topics in W physics at greater length. Direct LEP searches for the Higgs boson and supersymmetric particles will be discussed, and the prospects for their discoveries at future accelerators will be previewed.

by Academic Training