The discovery of supergravity and its early development
Published: Jul 31, 2025
Last Updated: Jul 31, 2025
Authors:Peter West
Abstract
I give an account of the discovery of supergravity and the first six years of its development which lead to the most general coupling of supergravity to matter. I restrict the discussion to theories with only one supersymmetry that are in four dimensions. As well as describing the contents of the papers I will also discuss the ideas and techniques they used. I begin by giving an account of the discovery of supersymmetry.