Conversations on Quantum Gravity

✍ Scribed by Jácome (Jay) Armas (editor)

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2021
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 720
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The holy grail of theoretical physics is to find the theory of everything that combines all the forces of nature, including gravity. This book addresses the question: how far are we from such discovery? Over the last few decades, multiple roads to finding a quantum theory of gravity have been proposed but no obvious description of nature has emerged in this domain. What is to be made of this situation? This volume probes the state-of-the art in this daunting quest of theoretical physics by collecting critical interviews with nearly forty leading theorists in this field. These broad-ranging conversations give important insights and candid opinions on the various approaches to quantum gravity, including string theory, loop quantum gravity, causal set theory and asymptotic safety. This unique, readable overview provides a gateway into cutting edge research for students and others who wish to engage with the open problem of quantum gravity.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Half-title
Title page
Copyright information
Dedication
Contents
Preface: Why This Book and Why Did It Take So Long?
Introduction
The Interviews
1 Jan Ambjørn
2 Nima Arkani-Hamed
3 Abhay Ashtekar
4 Jan de Boer
5 Steven Carlip
6 Alain Connes
7 Robbert Dijkgraaf
8 Bianca Dittrich
9 Fay Dowker
10 Laurent Freidel
11 Steven Giddings
12 Rajesh Gopakumar
13 David J. Gross
14 Gerard ’t Hooft
15 Petr Hořava
16 Renate Loll
17 Juan Maldacena
18 Shiraz Minwalla
19 Hermann Nicolai
20 Roger Penrose
21 Joseph Polchinski
22 Alexander Polyakov
23 Martin Reuter
24 Carlo Rovelli
25 Nathan Seiberg
26 Ashoke Sen
27 Eva Silverstein
28 Lee Smolin
29 Rafael Sorkin
30 Andrew Strominger
31 Leonard Susskind
32 Thomas Thiemann
33 Cumrun Vafa
34 Erik Verlinde
35 Steven Weinberg
36 Frank Wilczek
37 Edward Witten
Acknowledgements
Index