Conversations on Quantum Gravity

The holy grail of theoretical physics is to find the theory of everything that combines all the forces of nature, including gravity. This book addresses the question: how far are we from such discovery? Over the last few decades, multiple roads to finding a quantum theory of gravity have been proposed but no obvious description of nature has emerged in this domain. What is to be made of this situation? This volume probes the state-of-the art in this daunting quest of theoretical physics by collecting critical interviews with nearly forty leading theorists in this field. These broad-ranging conversations give important insights and candid opinions on the various approaches to quantum gravity, including string theory, loop quantum gravity, causal set theory and asymptotic safety. This unique, readable overview provides a gateway into cutting edge research for students and others who wish to engage with the open problem of quantum gravity.

Introduction, The Interviews: 1. Jan Ambjørn; 2. Nima Arkani-Hamed; 3. Abhay Ashtekar; 4. Jan de Boer; 5. Steven Carlip; 6. Alain Connes; 7. Robbert Dijkgraaf; 8. Bianca Dittrich; 9. Fay Dowker; 10. Laurent Freidel; 11. Steven Giddings; 12. Rajesh Gopakumar; 13. David J. Gross; 14. Gerard 't Hooft; 15. Petr Horava; 16. Renate Loll; 17. Juan Maldacena; 18. Shiraz Minwalla; 19. Hermann Nicolai; 20. Roger Penrose; 21. Joseph Polchinski; 22. Alexander Polyakov; 23. Martin Reuter; 24. Carlo Rovelli; 25. Nathan Seiberg; 26. Ashoke Sen; 27. Eva Silverstein; 28. Lee Smolin; 29. Rafael Sorkin; 30. Andrew Strominger; 31. Leonard Susskind; 32. Thomas Thiemann; 33. Cumrun Vafa; 34. Erik Verlinde; 35. Steven Weinberg; 36. Frank Wilczek; 37. Edward Witten; Index.

Jácome (Jay) Armas is an assistant professor at the Institute of Physics and coordinator of the Dutch Institute for Emergent Phenomena, University of Amsterdam. He completed his Ph.D. at the Niels Bohr Institute and held postdoctoral positions at the University of Bern and Université Libre de Bruxelles. His research interests span foundational issues in string theory, hydrodynamics and black holes, as well as emergent phenomena in quantum and soft matter. In addition to his research activities, he established the international science outreach platform and event series Science & Cocktails. This volume, compiled over more than 10 years of mainly in-person interviews, is his gift to the physics community.