Twistor Revolution in Physics

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This is a short alert note! It looks like a new revolution in theoretical physics, involving Twistor concept, has been going on for some time. Spinor coordinates, Clifford Algebra and quantum states replacing the space-time and classical vector calculus. No longer are space and time the free coordinate variables of the quantum or classical equations of motion or of the curvature tensor (General Relativity - R.I.P.).   No space, no time, no singularities, no Feynman diagrams, no locality, no 26 dimensions ...

Roger Penrose on Twistors and Quantum Non-Locality,
Perimeter Institute, 2011

Roger Penrose - Twistor, Reality and Quantum Non Locality.
Summer School on the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics
dedicated to John Bell, Sesto Italy 28.07.2014

(Links Updated 6 May 2015)

More reading, more refs: Andrew Hodges review

For the most hardened, read this somewhat unreadable "Primer on Twistors" by Fedja Hadrovich.

Updated 30-Aug-2015.

- Did anyone notice that it looks like the Clifford-related stuff (see this or that primer) seems to have begun exploding in physics and mathematical physics in just the last few years!   It has shifted out of the fringe bin into the openly discussed theories.

Number 1 breakthrough is that it came up naturally in the context of calculating gluon-gluon amplitudes without using perturbation theory and infinite series approximation a la QM of the 1920-ties. (see above).

Number 2 - there seems to be a relation with Bell Theorem and Quantum Computing.   It looks like the following paper:
   "Does Geometric Algebra provide a loophole to Bell’s Theorem?" by Richard D. Gill
- has touched the issue of Bell Theorem paradoxes and certain effects involving quantum computation (already in an experimental stage) that seem to require the usage of Clifford formalism! 

The kicker is that many physicists have mistakenly assumed that the way forward beyond the Euclidean and  Newtonian physics of the 19-th Century was to curve the metrics!   Now the Nature herself is giving us some hints that it was either a step in the wrong direction or just grossly insufficient!  Curving the metrics, or making it (+,-,-,-) curved or not, or adding more dimensions a la string theory, does not fundamentally alter the structure of space-time and it still does not seem to fit very well to Quantum Mechanics!

I knew all along that something was wrong, ever since I graduated from physics in 1980.  The telltale sign for me was the sheer complexity of the apparatus and an inability to grasp it in one go by virtually anybody! (Those who claimed otherwise, I suspect were probably faking it) .  It is the "What The F..k" syndrome that made me doubt it.  I am sure ages ago in the antiquity, some scientists must have had the same sinking feeling looking at the Ptolemean Theory of Epicycles.   I wonder how is WTF in Latin?

Learn more and have fun.

Stan (Heretic)