From the intro: "The theory, called noncommutative geometry, rests on two essential points:
1. The existence of many natural spaces for which the classical set-theoretic tools of analysis, such as measure theory, topology, calculus, and metric ideas lose their pertinence, but which correspond very naturally to a noncommutative algebra. Such spaces arise both in mathematics and in quantum physics and we shall discuss them in more detail below; examples include:
a) The space of Penrose tilings
b) The space of leaves of a foliation