Spacetime Couplings and Affine Algebras

Abstract

In this talk I wish to outline some issues of reinterpretation and philosophy that have arisen in recent study of string theory. Specifically I shall try to illustrate some of the limited understanding of the relation between worldsheet and spacetime symmetries that has developed in the last couple of years by considering relations between induced spacetime gauge and gravitational couplings for arbitrary (closed) string theories. Since an extensive review literature of strings has developed since 1984, I will make no attempt here to provide either an exhaustive list of references (a compendium of references may be found in [1], and a recent “progress” report may be found in [2]) or a detailed theoretical introduction to the theory. Instead I intend here no more than an idiosyncratic and rather wordy complement to the standard presentation.