General relativity vs. quantum mechanics (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, April 30, 2013, 16:15 (4226 days ago)

A very new and complex method to try and reconcile the two. Loop quantum gravity, string theory and others may fit into this. Finally, an advance?--"spectral geometry ... a field in mathematics which concerns relationships between geometric structures of manifolds and spectra of canonically defined differential operators ... may resolve this long-standing quandary by allowing spacetime to be treated as simultaneously continuous and discrete, essentially relating the frequency-based ringing of the fabric of spacetime to its manifold-based shape. Recently, scientists at California Institute of Technology, Princeton University, University of Waterloo, and University of Queensland normalized and segmented spectral geometry into small, finite-dimensional steps. They then demonstrated their approach of calculating the shapes of two-dimensional objects from their vibrational spectra as being viable in two, and possibly more, dimensions."
 
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-04-gravity-lingua-franca-relativity-quantum.html#jCp