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August 22, 2006

Good Article on Loop Quantum Gravity -- New Approach to Physics

The New Scientist published a nice overview of the emerging theory of Loop Quantum Gravity. I've been following this for a number of years, ever since my friend Bram turned me onto it. It's related in some ways to other models of discrete space-time, such as cellular automata and digital physics.

LEE SMOLIN is no magician. Yet he and his colleagues have pulled off one of the greatest tricks imaginable. Starting from nothing more than Einstein's general theory of relativity, they have conjured up the universe. Everything from the fabric of space to the matter that makes up wands and rabbits emerges as if out of an empty hat.

It is an impressive feat. Not only does it tell us about the origins of space and matter, it might help us understand where the laws of the universe come from. Not surprisingly, Smolin, who is a theoretical physicist at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario, is very excited. "I've been jumping up and down about these ideas," he says.

This promising approach to understanding the cosmos is based on a collection of theories called loop quantum gravity, an attempt to merge general relativity and quantum mechanics into a single consistent theory.

The origins of loop quantum gravity can be traced back to the 1980s, when Abhay Ashtekar, now at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, rewrote Einstein's equations of general relativity in a quantum framework. Smolin and Carlo Rovelli of the University of the Mediterranean in Marseille, France, later developed Ashtekar's ideas and discovered that in the new framework, space is not smooth and continuous but instead comprises indivisible chunks just 10-35 metres in diameter. Loop quantum gravity then defines space-time as a network of abstract links that connect these volumes of space, rather like nodes linked on an airline route map.

From the start, physicists noticed that these links could wrap around one another to form braid-like structures. Curious as these braids were, however, no one understood their meaning. "We knew about braiding in 1987," says Smolin, "but we didn't know if it corresponded to anything physical."  Read More

                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Posted on August 22, 2006 at 11:37 AM in Alternative Science, Cellular Automata, Physics, Science |

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