Related papers: Atomism and Relationalism as guiding principles fo…
Quantum gravity was born as that branch of modern theoretical physics that tries to unify its guiding principles, i.e., quantum mechanics and general relativity. Nowadays it is providing new insight into the unification of all fundamental…
I review here some motivations to consider a theory of gravity based on independent metric and connection, and its status as a quantum theory.
Relationalism -- along the lines developed by Barbour and collaborators in the past 3 decades -- can be considered an advance with 1/4 of the facets of the canonical approach's Problem of Time as identified by Isham and Kuchar. Indeed,…
Assuming the validity of the equivalence principle in the quantum regime, we argue that one of the assumptions of the usual definition of quantum mechanics, namely separation between the ``classical'' detector and the ``quantum'' system,…
As a canonical and generally covariant gauge theory, loop quantum gravity requires special techniques to derive effective actions or equations. If the proper constructions are taken into account, the theory, in spite of considerable…
General relativity is a background-independent theory of a dynamical classical spacetime geometry. Quantum theory is formulated in a classical spacetime, as an intrinsically probabilistic, contextual theory of non-classical, interfering…
The expansion of our universe, when followed backward in time, implies that it emerged from a phase of huge density, the big bang. These stages are so extreme that classical general relativity combined with matter theories is not able to…
The goal of this article is to present a broad perspective on quantum gravity for \emph{non-experts}. After a historical introduction, key physical problems of quantum gravity are illustrated. While there are a number of interesting and…
We discuss some conceptual issues that any approach to quantum gravity has to confront. In particular, it is argued that one has to find a theory that can be interpreted in a realist manner, because theories with an instrumentalist…
The aim of this dissertation is to review `Loop Quantum Gravity', explaining the main structure of the theory and indicating its main open issues. We will develop the two main lines of research for the theory: the canonical quantization…
There is a serious disconnect between quantum theory and gravity. It occurs at the level of the very foundations of quantum theory, and is far deeper than just the matter of trying to quantize a non-linear theory. We shall examine some of…
Quantum gravity has long been thought to be completely decoupled from experiments or observations. Although it is true that smoking guns are still missing, there are now serious hopes that quantum gravity phenomena might be tested. We…
We propose a new phenomenological model for quantum gravity. This is based on a new interpretation in which quantum gravity is not an interaction, rather it is just responsible for generation of space-time-matter. Then we show this model is…
The questions of describing observables and observation in quantum gravity appear to be centrally important to its physics. A relational approach holds significant promise, and a classification of different types of relational observables…
One of the major issues confronting theoretical physics is finding a quantum theory of gravity and a resolution to the cosmological constant problem. It is believed that a true quantum theory of gravity will lead to a solution to the this…
Quantum gravity is known to be mostly a kind of metaphysical speculation. In this brief essay, we try to argue that, although still extremely difficult to reach, observational signatures can in fact be expected. The early universe is an…
I briefly review the current status of quantum gravity. After giving some general motivations for the need of such a theory, I discuss the main approaches in quantizing general relativity: Covariant approaches (perturbation theory,…
Quantum gravity is expected to be necessary in order to understand situations where classical general relativity breaks down. In particular in cosmology one has to deal with initial singularities, i.e. the fact that the backward evolution…
With a view to the results discussed in the first two parts of this paper, the concept of time is revisited oncemore and chosen as an example in order to demonstrate the meaning of fundamental in both physical and philosophical terms. It is…
The problem of finding the quantum theory of the gravitational field, and thus understanding what is quantum spacetime, is still open. One of the most active of the current approaches is loop quantum gravity. Loop quantum gravity is a…