A Brief Outline of Twistor Theory

Abstract

The normal space-time formalism for physics has proved remarkably successful. There are, nevertheless, several reasons for believing that, at a certain level of understanding, these space-time concepts will give way to others that are even more basic and fundamental. In the first place, the concept of space-time “point” is not very directly physical. For example, the particles that constitute matter as we know it are, even at the classical level, one-dimensional objects (world-lines) rather than zero-dimensional. Then, when quantum theory enters the picture, the uncertainty princple serves to obscure even further the relation between physical particles and space-time points. Do points really “exist” in a precisely defined sense at 10⁻¹³ cm? The question becomes even more pertinent at the quantum gravity level of 10⁻³³ cm.