Zero-point fluctuations in quantum fields give rise to observable forces between material bodies, the so-called Casimir forces.These lectures present the theory of the Casimir effect, primarily formulated in terms of Green's functions.
A brief review on the progress made in the study of Chern-Simons gauge theory since its relation to knot theory was discovered ten years ago is presented.
A simple introduction into the renormalization group (RG) in quantum field theory and an overview of the renormalization group method. The third section is devoted to essential topics of the renorm-group use in the QFT.
These notes review the effective lagrangian treatment of Goldstone and pseudo-Goldstone bosons, taking examples from high-energy/nuclear and condensed-matter physics.