Spinors and Space-Time: Volume 2, Spinor and Twistor Methods in Space-Time Geometry (Cambridge Monographs on Mathematical Physics)

It is the second volume of Penrose and Rindler`s book on Spinors and Twistors. I was interested in this book since I read the book of E.Cartan on Spinors and the papers on application of the spinor theory to the field theory by Atiyah et al., and wanted to learn the twistor idea invented by Penrose.In the beginning, useful formulae derived in the first volume are summarized.For physicists who want to learn the idea first but not the rigorous proofs, it is helpful. The triality symmetry of octonion, which is fully discussed in Cartan's book is discussed briefly in the appendix. Since the notation of the Dirac spinor is not used in the book, it is not straightforward to interpret the formulae in the language of the field theory, but it contains helpful ideas for understanding symmetries of the universe.

I purchased Spinors and space-time volume 2 after hearing Sir Roger Penrose give a lecture on the 2-part series. Here is my general impression of the book after reading portions of it this afternoon. The book is in excellent condition, and I am very pleased with my purchase.The illustrations and explanations are exquisite. I appreciate the precise terminology and generalizations to algebraic structures beyond just vectors. The reader does not have to take the authors at their word and can instead see the reasoning leading to an idea. Concepts such as sheaves are mentioned in passing if they are of interest to a knowledgeable reader but not essential to someone just trying to pick up the basics. These fun facts are interspersed throughout the book without making the text too dense. Every essential idea appears to be explained with the non-expert in mind. The tone of the book is inviting and enthusiastic.This book is an heirloom physics text which is a delight to behold. The color of the dust jacket is sphene-green, which is fitting, because sphenes are one of most sparkly and rarest of gems.