Spinors in Physics

the long version

Invented by Dirac in creating his relativistic quantum theory of the electron, spinors are important in quantum theory, relativity, nuclear physics, atomic and molecular physics, and condensed matter physics. Essentially, they are the mathematical entities that correspond to electrons in the same way that ordinary wave functions correspond to classical particles (including photons). Because of their relations to the rotation group SO(n) and the unitary group SU(n), the discussion should be of interest to applied mathematicians as well as physicists.