p This is an English translation of my monograph Dialectics in Modern Physics published in Russian by Nauka Publishers in 1973. Its substance remains, for the most part, as in the Russian original, except for the addition of a short chapter ’In Lieu of a Conclusion’, which represents a sort of philosophical summing up.

p I do not propose to speak here about the book’s substance. The reader will perhaps tell me that there are repetitions in it. My reply would be that such repetitions are frequently necessary, especially when one allows for the fact that each time they express a new shade of meaning in the appropriate context.

p I would like to thank Progress Publishers for the work they have done in translating and publishing my book. I am the more pleased to do so since some of the material of the Russian edition had been published abroad in the form of articles and papers. In particular I would mention the following: Das Problem des elementaren Charakters der Teilchen (Physikalische Blatter, 1966, 22, 8); a paper on the absolute and the relative in the Proceedings of the XlVth World Congress of Philosophy (Vienna, 1968); an article on the principle of observabiuiy in modern physics in Foundations of Physics, 1972, 2, 2/3; a paper on elementary particles and the universe in the Proceedings of the XVth World Congress of Philosophy (Varna, 1973); and a report Objektives und Subjektives in der Quantentheorie to the ’Connaissance scientifique et philosophic’ colloquium of the Belgian Academy of Sciences (Brussels, 1975).

p It is my hope that the material presented here has not become out of date, since the Russian original was published in 1973, and that the book will prove useful to those who are interested in the philosophical problems of modern physics.

M. E. Omelyanovsky