Related papers: Quantum Gravity/String/M-theory/ as we approach th…
The major advances in physics have been through counterintuitive breakthroughs-- ideas that seemed to go against prevailing convictions. In the twentieth century the Special and General Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics have…
These lectures intend to give a pedagogical introduction into some of the developments in string theory during the last years. They include perturbative T-duality and non perturbative S- and U-dualities, their unavoidable demand for…
The purpose of these lectures is to discuss in some detail a new, non-perturbative approach to quantum gravity. I would like to present the basic ideas, outline the key results that have been obtained so far and indicate where we are headed…
It is hoped that these lectures will give a point of entry into that vast web of related ideas that go under the name "string theory". I start with a more or less qualitative introduction to gravity as a field theory and sketch how one…
We give an overview of ongoing searches for effects motivated by the study of the quantum-gravity problem. We describe in greater detail approaches which have not been covered in recent ``Quantum Gravity Phenomenology'' reviews. In…
At the present time, string theory (and its generalizations) remain relatively abstruse subjects to the particle phenomenologist and experimentalist. Yet, striking developments of the last two years offer hope that a fundamental…
Quantum Mechanics of photons leads to a theory of Quantum Gravity that nicely matches the experimental results of varying fine structure constant,obtained from many-multiplet Quaser absorption systems and atomic clocks.The variation of that…
String theory is the leading candidate for a unified theory of the standard model and gravity. In the last few years theorists have realized that there is a unique structure underlying string theory. In this unification a prominent role is…
Particle physics has evolved in the past decade through evaluating the consequences of experimental measurements as well as exploiting theoretical tools that permit exploration of new model building and cosmological possibilities.…
This lecture presents a brief overview of the early history of string theory and supersymmetry. It describes how the S-matrix theory program for understanding the strong nuclear force evolved into superstring theory, which is a promising…
We propose a new program to quantize and renormalize gravity based on recent progress on the analysis of large random tensors. We compare it briefly with other existing approaches.
On the way towards quantum gravity and the unification of interaction, several ideas have been rejected and avenues avoided because they were perceived as physically unviable. But in the literature there are works in which it was found the…
A version of the cosmological perturbation theory in general relativity (GR) is developed, where the cosmological scale factor is identified with spatial averaging of the metric determinant logarithm and the cosmic evolution acquires the…
Numerical relativity has made big strides over the last decade. A number of problems that have plagued the field for years have now been mostly solved. This progress has transformed numerical relativity into a powerful tool to explore…
Planck scale physics represents a future challenge, located between particle physics and general relativity. The Planck scale marks a threshold beyond which the old description of spacetime breaks down and conceptually new phenomena must…
We describe the basic assumptions and key results of loop quantum gravity, which is a background independent approach to quantum gravity. The emphasis is on the basic physical principles and how one deduces predictions from them, at a level…
Computer simulations allow us to explore non-perturbative phenomena in physics. This has the potential to help us understand quantum gravity. Finding a theory of quantum gravity is a hard problem, but in the last decades many promising and…
Starting from the work of the author in 1990 with different collaborators, essential progress in 2d gravity theories has been made. Now all such theories (and not only certain special models) can be treated at the classical as well as at…
In this short survey paper, we discuss certain recent results in classical gravity. Our main attention is restricted to two topics: the positive mass conjecture and its extensions to the case with horizons, including the Penrose conjecture…
A pedagogical introduction to some of the main ideas and results of field theories on quantized spacetimes is presented, with emphasis on what such field theories may teach us about the problem of quantizing gravity. We examine to what…