Thirteen years of pair production

Pair production from relativistic heavy-ion collisions is reviewed. Physical processes produced from two photons are discussed, and their calculation in terms of Feynman diagrams and classical perturbation theory are compared. The experiments at CERN energies are discussed and compared to Monte Carlo QED calculations. We also discuss a number of phenomena and their consequences: (i) the creation of electron pairs and their importance for the detection of dileptons at RHIC; (ii) the creation of electron pairs with capture and implications for accelerator design, and (iii) the creation of the vector bosons and the Higgs boson and consequences for electron-weak theories. copyright 1995 American Institute of Physics