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)

Lesson from medical history - beware of liars!

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An article link was emailed to me by a friend.  An article like many of that kind, published in the last few years exonerating the benefits of low carb nutrition and pointing out some fallacies of the past misguided medical guidelines, full of references and links to various published studies.

  The way it was written, in a succinct way, has caught my attention and made me think about my own path to nutritional heresy and liberation from the Official Medical Dogma.   It dawned on me that it is actually much worse than I ever believed!   Back in 1999, when I once saw a medical article calling for low fat low meat high vegetable and fruit diet, in my naivety, I sent an email to an author, pointing out discrepancies and inaccuracies.   Among them I pointed out that the health risks associated with saturated fat and meat consumption were most likely caused by mixing fat and carbohydrates together in similar caloric proportions.   I believed in that!    The truth turns out (see many of the references links embedded in the article, for example this multi-study review) was much simpler and troubling than that - we were not dealing with the honest scientific mistakes!   The statements of a  health risk from eating saturated fat, with carbohydrates or without -  were a mixture of medical lies, references to irreproducible anti-saturated fat and cholesterol pseudoscience, plus unproven opinions!  Much of the dietary medical "wisdom" doled out so often in the past 30 years by the generations of unintelligent doctors to their patients, has been actually completely disproven by many of the past studies and by a majority of recent studies!

Heretic

References:

1) 13 Nutrition Lies That Made The World Sick And Fat

2) Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease