Related papers: Quantum Spacetime: Echoes of basho
Quantum gravity (or quantum spacetime) is to unify general relativity and quantum mechanics into a single theoretical framework and presented as the most important open puzzle in fundamental physics. The development of a microscopic theory…
Quantum gravity has become a fertile interface between gravitational physics and quantum many-body physics, with its double goal of identifying the microscopic constituents of the universe and their fundamental dynamics, and of…
`How do our ideas about quantum mechanics affect our understanding of spacetime?' This familiar question leads to quantum gravity. The complementary question is also important: `How do our ideas about spacetime affect our understanding of…
This essay presents an accessible introduction to the basic motivations to seek a quantum theory of gravity. It focuses on one approach- loop quantum gravity - as an example of the rich philosophical issues that arise when we try to combine…
Quantum Theory, similar to Relativity Theory, requires a new concept of space-time, imposed by a universal constant. While velocity of light $c$ not being infinite calls for a redefinition of space-time on large and cosmological scales,…
Any acceptable quantum gravity theory must allow us to recover the classical spacetime in the appropriate limit. Moreover, the spacetime geometrical notions should be intrinsically tied to the behavior of the matter that probes them. We…
General Relativity describes gravity in geometrical terms. This suggests that quantizing such theory is the same as quantizing geometry. The subject can therefore be called quantum geometry and one may think that mathematicians are…
Our purpose here is to introduce the idea of viewing the spacetime as a macroscopic complex system which, consequently, cannot be directly quantized. It should be thought of as a collection of more fundamental "microscopical" entities…
I consider the possibility that space experiments be used to search for quantum properties of spacetime. On the basis of recent quantum-gravity results, I argue that insight on some quantum properties of spacetime can be obtained with…
This article is based on an invited talk given at the Workshop on Mathematical Physics Towards XXIst Century, held at Beer-Sheva, Israel in 1993. It contains an introduction to quantum gravity for mathematical physicists with an emphasis on…
This is a contribution to a book on quantum gravity and philosophy. I discuss nature and origin of the problem of quantum gravity. I examine the knowledge that may guide us in addressing this problem, and the reliability of such knowledge.…
We will highlight that despite there being various approaches to quantum gravity, there are universal approach-independent features of quantum gravity. The geometry of spacetime becomes an emergent structure, which emerges from some purely…
A consistent quantum theory of gravity has remained elusive ever since the emergence of General Relativity and Quantum Field Theory. Attempts to date have not yielded a candidate that is either free from problematic theoretical…
We propose a mathematical model of quantum spacetime as an infinite-dimensional manifold locally homeomorphic to an appropriate Schwartz space. This extends and unifies both the standard function space construction of quantum mechanics and…
We survey indications from different branches of Physics that the fine scale structure of spacetime is not adequately described by a manifold. Based on the hints we accumulate, we propose a new structure, which we call a quantum topos. In…
The concepts of space, time, and matter are of central importance in any theory of the gravitational field. Here I discuss the role that these concepts might play in quantum theories of gravity. To be concrete, I will focus on the most…
Conventional approaches to quantum gravity regard quantum principles, such as nonlocality and superposition, as fundamental properties of nature and therefore argue that gravity must also be quantized. In contrast, this work introduces a…
General relativity promotes space-time to a physical, dynamical object subject to equations of motion. Quantum gravity, accordingly, must provide a quantum framework for space-time, applicable on the smallest distance scales. Just like…
The metric determines the casual structure of spacetime, but in quantum gravity it is also a dynamical field which must be quantized using this causal structure; this is the famous problem of time. A radical resolution of this paradox is…
Quantum groups emerged in the latter quarter of the 20th century as, on the one hand, a deep and natural generalisation of symmetry groups for certain integrable systems, and on the other as part of a generalisation of geometry itself…