Antiquity, Dark Ages and Renaissance of Light-Front Higher Spin Theory

Abstract

These notes contain -- apart from some physics -- scattered reminiscences of everyday life at the Institute for Theoretical Physics in G\"oteborg in the early eighties. The text has been in the making for many years. Some of it was written inspired by the Lars Brink 70-fest at The Solvay Institute in Brussels in 2014, but was never finished or published. Parts of the old text has now been replaced by a review of the quite unexpected recent renaissance for light-front higher spin theory. Lars sadly did not live to experience more than the very beginnings of this quite remarkable development. The text was finalized in the spring of 2023.