Related papers: Zooming in on discrete space
Recent progress in quantum gravity and string theory has raised interest among scientists to whether or not nature behaves discretely at the Planck scale. There are two attitudes twoards this discretenes i.e. top-down and bottom-up…
We argue that discreteness at the Planck scale (naturally expected to arise from quantum gravity) might manifest in the form of minute violations of energy-momentum conservation of the matter degrees of freedom when described in terms of…
A satisfactory theory of quantum gravity may necessitate a drastic modification of our perception of space-time, by giving it a foamy structure at distances comparable to the Planck length. It is argued in this essay that the experimental…
This paper begins with a theoretical explanation of why spacetime is discrete. The derivation shows that there exists an elementary length which is essentially Planck's length. We then show how the existence of this length affects time…
I briefly review some scenarios for the role of the Planck length in quantum gravity. In particular, I examine the differences between the schemes in which quantum gravity is expected to introduce a maximum acceleration and the schemes in…
We review recent efforts to construct gravitational theories on discrete space-times, usually referred to as the ``consistent discretization'' approach. The resulting theories are free of constraints at the canonical level and therefore…
There are several indications (from different approaches) that Spacetime at the Plank Scale could be discrete. One approach to Quantum Gravity that takes this most seriously is the Causal Sets Approach. In this approach spacetime is…
Generalized uncertainty principle and breakdown of the spacetime continuum certainly represent two important results derived of various approaches related to quantum gravity and black hole physics near the well-known Planck scale. The…
Whether or not space-time is fundamentally discrete is of central importance for the development of the theory of quantum gravity. If the fundamental description of space-time is discrete, typically represented in terms of a graph or…
We assume that space-time at the Planck scale is discrete, quantised in Planck units and "qubitsed" (each pixel of Planck area encodes one qubit), that is, quantum space-time can be viewed as a quantum computer. Within this model, one finds…
The continuum of real numbers has served well as a model for physical space in mechanics and field theories. However it is a well-motivated and popular idea that at the fundamental Planck scale the combination of gravitational and quantum…
This is a review of the results on black hole physics in the framework of loop quantum gravity. The key feature underlying the results is the discreteness of geometric quantities at the Planck scale predicted by this approach to quantum…
We propose that the observed value of the cosmological constant may be explained by a fundamental uncertainty in the spacetime metric, which arises when combining the principle that mass and energy curve spacetime with the quantum…
Is there a number for every bit of spacetime, or is spacetime smooth like the real line? The ultimate fate of a quantum theory of gravity might depend on it. The troublesome infinities of quantum gravity can be cured by assuming that…
Given a minimum measurable length underlying spacetime, the latter may be effectively regarded as discrete, at scales of order the Planck length. A systematic discretization of continuum physics may be effected most efficiently through the…
The Standard Model of the elementary particles is controlled by more than 20 parameters, of which it is not known today how they can be linked to deeper principles. Any attempt to clean up this theory, in general results in producing more…
Time at the Planck scale ($\sim 10^{-44}\,\mathrm{s}$) is an unexplored physical regime. It is widely believed that probing Planck time will remain for long an impossible task. Yet, we propose an experiment to test the discreteness of time…
We assume that the points in volumes smaller than an elementary volume (which may have a Planck size) are indistinguishable in any physical experiment. This naturally leads to a picture of a discrete space with a finite number of degrees of…
The relevance of the Planck scale to a theory of quantum gravity has become a worryingly little examined assumption that goes unchallenged in the majority of research in this area. However, in all scientific honesty, the significance of…
Various approaches to Quantum Gravity (such as String Theory and Doubly Special Relativity), as well as black hole physics predict a minimum measurable length, or a maximum observable momentum, and related modifications of the Heisenberg…