Of connections and fields—II

In the first part of this article¹ we gave an elementary introduction to Chern’s ideas and their impact on modern physics. In this concluding article we describe some more advanced applications of Chern’s ideas. This second part is some-what more demanding than the first part and is addressed to students with some background in mathematics and physics. Joseph Samuel is a theoretical physicist and by natural inclination a classical mechanic. Over the years he has strayed into other fields like optics, general relativity and very recently DNA elasticity. A unifying theme in his work is differential geometry and topology in physics. He keeps moderately fit by raising and lowering indices and relaxes by playing semiclassical guitar.