Woensdag 17 november 2010

Spreker:	Simon Brain (Radboud Universiteit)
Titel:	Elements and Applications of Twistor Theory
Tijd:	11:00 - 12:00
Plaats:	HG01.028

Vanaf kwart voor 11 is er koffie en thee voor de zaal.

Abstract

Twistors were introduced in the late 1960s by Sir Roger Penrose, with the aim of finding a suitable geometric formalism for the union of quantum theory and general relativity. Penrose's insight was to interpret the light rays (null curves) in space-time as being the fundamental objects, rather than the points of space-time itself. This allows for an elegant framework in which complicated differential equations on space-time are recast in terms of much simpler algebraic equations on twistor space; a method which is similar in spirit to the way the Fourier transform helps to solve differential equations in dimension one.

In this talk I will try to give a friendly introduction to the basic elements of twistor theory, followed by a short survey of some of the wide-ranging applications it has found in mathematics and physics.