This work is unique compared to the existing literature. It is very didactical and accessible to both students and researchers, without neglecting the formal character and the deep algebraic completeness of the topic along with its physical applications.

This is the second edition of a popular work offering a unique introduction to Clifford algebras and spinors. The beginning chapters could be read by undergraduates; vectors, complex numbers and quaternions are introduced with an eye on Clifford algebras. The next chapters will also interest physicists, and include treatments of the quantum mechanics of the electron, electromagnetism and special relativity with a flavour of Clifford algebras. This edition has three new chapters, including material on conformal invariance and a history of Clifford algebras.

A straightforward introduction to Clifford algebras, providing the necessary background material and many applications in mathematics and physics.

Matrix algebra has been called "the arithmetic of higher mathematics" [Be]. We think the basis for a better arithmetic has long been available, but its versatility has hardly been appreciated, and it has not yet been integrated into the mainstream of mathematics. We refer to the system commonly called 'Clifford Algebra', though we prefer the name 'Geometric Algebra' suggested by Clifford himself. Many distinct algebraic systems have been adapted or developed to express geometric relations and describe geometric structures. Especially notable are those algebras which have been used for this purpose in physics, in particular, the system of complex numbers, the quaternions, matrix algebra, vector, tensor and spinor algebras and the algebra of differential forms. Each of these geometric algebras has some significant advantage over the others in certain applications, so no one of them provides an adequate algebraic structure for all purposes of geometry and physics. At the same time, the algebras overlap considerably, so they provide several different mathematical representations for individual geometrical or physical ideas.

This monograph provides an introduction to the theory of Clifford algebras, with an emphasis on its connections with the theory of Lie groups and Lie algebras. The book starts with a detailed presentation of the main results on symmetric bilinear forms and Clifford algebras. It develops the spin groups and the spin representation, culminating in Cartan’s famous triality automorphism for the group Spin(8). The discussion of enveloping algebras includes a presentation of Petracci’s proof of the Poincaré–Birkhoff–Witt theorem. This is followed by discussions of Weil algebras, Chern--Weil theory, the quantum Weil algebra, and the cubic Dirac operator. The applications to Lie theory include Duflo’s theorem for the case of quadratic Lie algebras, multiplets of representations, and Dirac induction. The last part of the book is an account of Kostant’s structure theory of the Clifford algebra over a semisimple Lie algebra. It describes his “Clifford algebra analogue” of the Hopf–Koszul–Samelson theorem, and explains his fascinating conjecture relating the Harish-Chandra projection for Clifford algebras to the principal sl(2) subalgebra. Aside from these beautiful applications, the book will serve as a convenient and up-to-date reference for background material from Clifford theory, relevant for students and researchers in mathematics and physics.

William Kingdon Clifford published the paper defining his "geometric algebras" in 1878, the year before his death. Clifford algebra is a generalisation to n-dimensional space of quaternions, which Hamilton used to represent scalars and vectors in real three-space: it is also a development of Grassmann's algebra, incorporating in the fundamental relations inner products defined in terms of the metric of the space. It is a strange fact that the Gibbs Heaviside vector techniques came to dominate in scientific and technical literature, while quaternions and Clifford algebras, the true associative algebras of inner-product spaces, were regarded for nearly a century simply as interesting mathematical curiosities. During this period, Pauli, Dirac and Majorana used the algebras which bear their names to describe properties of elementary particles, their spin in particular. It seems likely that none of these eminent mathematical physicists realised that they were using Clifford algebras. A few research workers such as Fueter realised the power of this algebraic scheme, but the subject only began to be appreciated more widely after the publication of Chevalley's book, 'The Algebraic Theory of Spinors' in 1954, and of Marcel Riesz' Maryland Lectures in 1959. Some of the contributors to this volume, Georges Deschamps, Erik Folke Bolinder, Albert Crumeyrolle and David Hestenes were working in this field around that time, and in their turn have persuaded others of the importance of the subject.

Describes orthgonal and related Lie groups, using real or complex parameters and indefinite metrics. Develops theory of spinors by giving a purely geometric definition of these mathematical entities.