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This Week’s Finds
No finds this week.
Focus Session:
Joshua delivered a talk on how spinors arise in physics, including how they were discovered historically.
Introduction to Spinors:
- An overview of what spinors are and how they differ from vectors and tensors.
- Their essential role in describing intrinsic angular momentum (spin) in quantum mechanics.
Historical Development:
- A narrative tracing the origins of spinors from early mathematical concepts through to their adoption in physics.
- Discussion of key contributions from figures such as Élie Cartan, Wolfgang Pauli, and Paul Dirac.
- How the evolution of quantum theory necessitated a new kind of mathematical object to describe electron spin and relativistic effects.
Physical Significance:
- The role of spinors in the formulation of the Dirac equation and their connection to the symmetries of space-time.
- How the abstract mathematical framework of spinors eventually found concrete applications in modern physics.
Discussion Points:
- Questions on the geometric interpretation of spinors and their implications for both classical and quantum systems.
- Consideration of how historical insights can guide current research directions in theoretical physics.
Up Next:
Reading Group:
For next week’s reading we aim to be complete:
- Combination of readings for Homology
- Rotman, 3-5
- Hatcher, 1-2
- Lee Top, 5-6
References:
- Spinors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinor