{"id":76646,"date":"2018-03-06T14:22:39","date_gmt":"2018-03-06T22:22:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/03\/physicists-find-a-way-to-see-the-grin-of-quantum-gravity"},"modified":"2018-03-12T12:17:03","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T19:17:03","slug":"physicists-find-a-way-to-see-the-grin-of-quantum-gravity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/03\/physicists-find-a-way-to-see-the-grin-of-quantum-gravity","title":{"rendered":"Physicists Find a Way to See the \u2018Grin\u2019 of Quantum Gravity"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

In 1935, when both quantum mechanics and Albert Einstein\u2019s general theory of relativity were young, a little-known Soviet physicist named Matvei Bronstein, just 28 himself, made the first detailed study<\/a> of the problem of reconciling the two in a quantum theory of gravity. This \u201cpossible theory of the world as a whole,\u201d as Bronstein called it, would supplant Einstein\u2019s classical description of gravity, which casts it as curves in the space-time continuum, and rewrite it in the same quantum language as the rest of physics.<\/p>\n

Bronstein figured out how to describe gravity in terms of quantized particles, now called gravitons, but only when the force of gravity is weak \u2014 that is (in general relativity), when the space-time fabric is so weakly curved that it can be approximated as flat. When gravity is strong, \u201cthe situation is quite different,\u201d he wrote. \u201cWithout a deep revision of classical notions, it seems hardly possible to extend the quantum theory of gravity also to this domain.\u201d<\/p>\n

His words were prophetic. Eighty-three years later, physicists are still trying to understand how space-time curvature emerges on macroscopic scales from a more fundamental, presumably quantum picture of gravity; it\u2019s arguably the deepest question in physics<\/a>. Perhaps, given the chance, the whip-smart Bronstein might have helped to speed things along. Aside from quantum gravity, he contributed to astrophysics and cosmology, semiconductor theory, and quantum electrodynamics, and he also wrote several science books for children, before being caught up in Stalin\u2019s Great Purge and executed in 1938, at the age of 31.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1935, when both quantum mechanics and Albert Einstein\u2019s general theory of relativity were young, a little-known Soviet physicist named Matvei Bronstein, just 28 himself, made the first detailed study of the problem of reconciling the two in a quantum theory of gravity. This \u201cpossible theory of the world as a whole,\u201d as Bronstein called [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,48,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cosmology","category-particle-physics","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76646"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76654,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76646\/revisions\/76654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}