University of Illinois Chicago
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Quantum gravity and the nature of space and time

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journal contribution
posted on 2018-06-20, 00:00 authored by Keizo Matsurbara
This is a nontechnical overview of how various approaches to quantum gravity suggest modifications to the way we conceptualize space and time. A theory of quantum gravity is needed to reconcile quantum physics with general relativity, our best theory for gravity. The most popular approaches to quantum gravity are string theory and loop quantum gravity. So far, no approach has been empirically successful, and there is no commonly accepted theory. Thus, the conclusions presented here are tentative. Many approaches suggest that space and time—or perhaps, it is better to talk about spacetime—might not be fundamental. Various views on how to think about time in quantum gravity are briefly presented.

Funding

This work was performed under a collaborative agreement between the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Geneva and made possible by grant number 56314 from the John Templeton Foundation

History

Publisher Statement

This is the pre-peer reviewed version of the following article: Matsubara, K. Quantum gravity and the nature of space and time. Philosophy Compass. 2017. 12(3), which has been published in final form at 10.1111/phc3.12405.

Citation

Matsubara, K. Quantum gravity and the nature of space and time. Philosophy Compass. 2017. 12(3). 10.1111/phc3.12405.

Publisher

Wiley

Language

  • en_US

issn

1747-9991

Issue date

2017-03-06

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