Chirality: A Scientific Leitmotif

Abstract

Handedness, or chirality, has been a continuing source of inspiration across a wide range of scientific problems. After a quick review of some important, instructive historical examples, I present three contemporary case studies involving sophisticated applications of chirality at the frontier of present-day science in the measurement of the muon magnetic moment, in topological physics, and in exploring the "chirality" of time. Finally, I briefly discuss chirality as a source of fertile questions.

Comments: Keynote talk at Nobel Symposium 167, "Chiral Matter", Stockholm June 2021. To be published in the proceedings. v2: Minor typos corrected, expanded discussion of T violation in biology