N. M. J. Woodhouse - Böcker

This collection has been inspired by the work of Roger Penrose. It gives an overview of current work on the interaction between geometry and physics, from which many important developments in research have emerged. This volume collects together the contributions of many important researchers, including Sir Roger himself, and gives an overview of the many applications of geometrical ideas and techniques across mathematics and the physical sciences. From the area of pure mathematics papers are included on the topics of classical differential geometry and non-commutative geometry, knot invariants, and the applications of gauge theory. Contributions from applied mathematics cover the topics of integrable systems and general relativity. Current research in experimental and theoretical physics inspired chapters on string theory, quantum gravity, the foundations of quantum mechanics, quasi-crystals and astrophysics. The collection also includes articles on quantum computation, quantum cryptography and the possible role of micro-tubules in a theory of consciousness.

It has been known for some time that many of the familiar integrable systems of equations are symmetry reductions of self-duality equations on a metric or on a Yang-Mills connection (for example, the Korteweg-de Vries and nonlinear Schrödinger equations are reductions of the self-dual Yang-Mills equation). This book explores in detail the connections between self-duality and integrability, and also the application of twistor techniques to integrable systems. It has two central themes: first, that the symmetries of self-duality equations provide a natural classification scheme for integrable systems; and second that twistor theory provides a uniform geometric framework for the study of B¨ acklund tranformations, the inverse scattering method, and other such general constructions of integrability theory, and that it elucidates the connections between them.