I had set out to disprove quantum field theory - and the opposite occurred! I was shocked.

Quantum field theory was originally developed for the treatment of electrodynamics, immediately after the completion of quantum mechanics and the discovery of the Dirac equation.

When I was at Berkeley, the framework of quantum field theory could calculate the dynamics of electromagnetism. It could roughly describe the motion of the weak nuclear force, radiation. But it hit a brick wall with the strong interaction, the binding force.

Since the founding of quantum mechanics in the 1920s, theoretical physics had nurtured an extremely radical tradition.

Ultimately, my Ph.D. is in mathematical physics, focusing on quantum field theory and curved space-time, and I worked with Stephen Hawking.

If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet.