Ideas from quantum field theory and topology have proved remarkably fertile in suggesting new phenomena in the quantum physics of condensed matter. Here Ill supply some broad, unifying context, both conceptual and historical, for the abundance of results reported at the Nobel Symposium on New Forms of Matter, Topological Insulators and Superconductors. Since they distill some most basic ideas in their simplest forms, these concluding remarks might also serve, for non-specialists, as an introduction.
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