Connes' non-commutative geometry: useful or just an exercise?

[nomadreid]

I know about the construction of the algebra in which operators as in Hilbert spaces are developed from Connes' non-commutative geometry, but I don't find any references [besides further publications by Connes himself] which say that this has turned out to be useful in physics for more than a study of some of the mathematical methods involved. In other words, would any theory of physics be worse off if Connes had never published? If so, could someone tell me what, and if possible, some references freely available on the Internet? Thanks.

 

[jedishrfu]

Here's what wikipedia has to say:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noncommutative_geometry

There are a couple of links in the Mathematical Physics section:

Applications in mathematical physics[edit]
Some applications in particle physics are described in the entries Noncommutative standard model and Noncommutative quantum field theory. The sudden rise in interest in noncommutative geometry in physics follows after the speculations of its role in M-theory made in 1997.[1]

 

[nomadreid]

Thanks very much, jedishrfu! (I don't know how I overlooked that....) I have downloaded the referenced paper. That answers the question.

 

[jedishrfu]

Yay! So many times I seem to miss the mark. Thank you.