A significant new development in fundamental physics concerns the possibility of exotic statistics. It is already known that they are important in the theory of the Hall effect and may also be important for high-temperature superconductivity. Balachandran and R. Sorkin, and their co-workers are pioneers in this field. Using topological considerations, they discovered such statistics in quantum gravity as well as for many other systems, and proved basic theorems concerning spin and statistics.
An exciting new field of mathmatics and physics is called noncommutative geometry. It generalizes the classical theory of manifolds and differential geometry in entirely new directions and has proved very fruitful for a deeper understanding and unification of the `Standard Model' for elementary particle interactions and the theory of gravity. Balachandran and co-workers applied these ideas to discuss the emergence of spacetime from quantum physics and to formulate discrete models of fundamental interactions.