Phil Anderson and Gauge symmetry breaking

In this article, I describe the celebrated paper that Phil Anderson wrote in 1962 with early contributions to the idea of gauge symmetry breaking in particle physics. To set the stage, I describe the work of Julian Schwinger to which Anderson was responding, and also some of Anderson's own work on superconductivity that provided part of the context. After describing Anderson's work I describe the later work of others, leading to the modern understanding of gauge symmetry breaking in weak interactions.