Geometric physics (Q1129861)

This paper is a non-technical review of the notion of duality which was discovered in the physical context of string theory but has given rise to deep conjectures of a purely mathematical nature as well. After giving a very general definition of the concept of duality, the author devotes three sections of the paper to special examples. The first and best understood example is known as mirror symmetry and relates string theory on one target manifold with another. The second example has become known as ``geometric engineering of quantum field theories'' and relates singularities of the geometry to gauge bundles for the dual theory. The third example consists in a dual description of black hole geometry which is intimately related to properties of minimal submanifolds of Calabi-Yau manifolds. The paper concludes with a list of open questions which pertain, among others, to enumerative geometry.