An elementary approach to spinors

We give a simple rule to associate a pair of complex numbers to a spinor. This association rule is suggested by an analysis of the link between Jones vectors and the Poincaré sphere, which are tools commonly used in the description of polarized light, and allows the basic properties of spinors, such as the effect of rotations, to be derived in a simple way. In our treatment, we give a purely mathematical description of spinors, without using the physical properties of the spin, so that the theory of spinors can be introduced independently from its application to physics.