#62 Exploring Twistor Theory - an interview with Lionel Mason and Maciej Dunajski

In the latest episode of Living Proof, Dan Aspel speaks to Professors Lionel Mason (Oxford) and Maciej Dunajski (Cambridge) of the Twistor Theory programme (https://www.newton.ac.uk/event/twt). Over the 30 minutes, they share their experiences of the scale and challenges of this far-reaching topic that - amongst other things - aims to unify general relativity and quantum mechanics. 00:00 - Introduction 00:42 - Welcome 01:48 - “I have been excited about this programme for 40 years”, introducing the topic 05:18 - Successes of the programme, the attendance of Roger Penrose 06:30 - Connecting Twistor Theory with the Kennedy assassination, a short history of the field 10:28 - The many languages of mathematics 13:45 - Periods of acceleration within the field, “… the 70s must have been truly exciting”, the collaboration between Penrose and Michael Atiyah 17:50 - “Roger makes no secret of the fact that he disapproved of String Theory” 19:48 - What applications can one expect from Twistor Theory? 27:14 - Personal highlights of the month-long programme, celebrating 30 years of collaboration