Planck Scale Effects in Astrophysics and Cosmology pp 363-408

Part of the Lecture Notes in Physics book series (LNP, volume 669)

Loop Quantum Gravity and planck Scale Phenomenology

  • L. Smolin
Chapter
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Abstract

Of the different approaches to quantum gravity, the best developed, from the point of view of addressing the key theoretical questions a quantum theory of gravity must answer, is loop quantum gravity1. While string theory appears to better address the issue of uni.cation, at least so far, it fails to provide a background independent approach to the quantum mechanics of spacetime geometry-a necessary condition for any quantum theory of gravity. Moreover, many key conjectures remain unproven, including perturbative finiteness and consistency, which have not been demonstrated for any string theory past second order in perturbation theory2. By contrast, loop quantum gravity appears to provide a consistent and finite background independent approach to quantum gravity. There is recent progress on several issues, including accounting for the black hole entropy [8], and giving a precise quantum mechanical description of the earliest phases of the evolution of the universe [9, 10]. Furthermore, it gives unique predictions of novel quantum gravitational phenomena, such as the discreteness of area, volume and other observables.

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Authors and Affiliations

  • L. Smolin
    • 1
  1. 1.Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics Waterloo Department of PhysicsUniversity of WaterlooCanada

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