Title:
Searching for Majorana fermions

Abstract:
At the dawn of modern physics, there were two different attempts
to reconcile quantum mechanics with special relativity for electrons.
When it was recognized that the earlier attempt by Dirac required
the existence of the anti-particle, a colleague of Fermi, Ettore Majorana,
came up with a solution that does not require anti-particles. While
this concept for a long time had been considered merely as a possible theory
for neutrinos, there recently has been active interest in possibility of 
Majorana fermions in condensed matter system as an instance of electron
fractionalization. I will discuss both the conceptual issues and the experimental
progresses.