Rovelli book's out

[marcus]

Here is the Cambridge U. Press catalog page for
Rovelli's new book Quantum Gravity

http://titles.cambridge.org/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521837332

It now says the book is "in stock" and says that it can be ordered
from publisher for Pounds 45.00
plus Pounds 3.50 to ship anywhere in world

US Amazon does not yet have the book in stock.
They have already sold a bunch, advance order, and they are
charging $ 70, shipping free within US. So even tho it may
take a bit longer it may be a better deal to get it from
Amazon.

[marcus]

herewith the amazon link
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0521837332/ref=pm_dp_ln_b_6/103-0219042-5153454?v=glance&s=books&n=507846&vi=reviews

here's some favorable comment by Alain Connes, from the CUP catalog:

"In spite of its sociological success string theory is still far from a solution of the problem of quantum gravity which should be considered as wide open. The book of Carlo Rovelli provides the basis, both at the technical and the conceptual level, for research in this fundamental problem of physics. The basic issues are clearly and deeply analyzed without any dogmatic stand and with great freedom of thoughts resulting in an unvaluable opportunity to learn and think for both mathematicians and physicists."
---Alain Connes is currently a Professor at the Collège de France, I.H.E.S. and Vanderbilt University

Connes should have said "inestimable" instead of "unvaluable"----the catalog editor at Cambridge should have caught that.

[jeff]

Connes should have said "inestimable" instead of "unvaluable"

Funny, that's the only part of Connes otherwise misleading blurb I agree with.

[marcus]

Funny, that's the only part of Connes otherwise misleading blurb I agree with.

Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau:
Mock on, mock on: tis all in vain!
You throw the sand against the wind,
And the wind blows it back again.

And every sand becomes a gem
Reflected in the beams divine;
Blown back they blind the mocking eye,
But still in Israel's path they shine.

The atoms of Democritus
And Newton's particles of light
Are sands upon the Red Sea shore,
Where Israel's tents do shine so bright.

---William Blake

[marcus]

how are things going at U. Toronto?

did you get Amanda Peet as lecturer in the string class?

[marcus]

Part of the reason for noticing the publication of Rovelli's book is that it helps to signal 2004 as a coming-of-age year for LQG

There has been an upsurge in research output (I will fetch the numbers)
plus there's the publication of major pieces of writing by the three founders of LQG (Ashtekar, Smolin, Rovelli) which help to define the field

Abhay Ashtekar and Jerzy Lewandowski Background Independent Quantum Gravity: a Status Report
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0404018

Lee Smolin An Invitation to Loop Quantum Gravity
http://arxiv.org/hep-th/0408048

Carlo Rovelli Quantum Gravity
Cambridge
-----
plus 2004 has seen an especially large number of QG conferences
Pune(India), Mexico City, Karpacz, Marseille, Waterloo
-----
As for the growth in research output, it is easiest to see from the arxiv postings:
Year 1994:
http://arXiv.org/find/nucl-ex,astro-ph,nucl-th,math-ph,hep-ex,physics,cond-mat,hep-lat,quant-ph,gr-qc,hep-ph,hep-th/1/OR+OR+abs:+AND+AND+loop+quantum+OR+cosmology+gravi ty+abs:+AND+AND+quantum+gravity+OR+OR+discrete+phe nomenology+OR+canonical+nonperturbative+abs:+OR+OR +spinfoam+AND+spin+foam+AND+OR+triply+doubly+speci al/0/1/0/1994/0/1
Year 1995:
http://arXiv.org/find/nucl-ex,astro-ph,nucl-th,math-ph,hep-ex,physics,cond-mat,hep-lat,quant-ph,gr-qc,hep-ph,hep-th/1/OR+OR+abs:+AND+AND+loop+quantum+OR+cosmology+gravi ty+abs:+AND+AND+quantum+gravity+OR+OR+discrete+phe nomenology+OR+canonical+nonperturbative+abs:+OR+OR +spinfoam+AND+spin+foam+AND+OR+triply+doubly+speci al/0/1/0/1995/0/1
Year 1996:
http://arXiv.org/find/nucl-ex,astro-ph,nucl-th,math-ph,hep-ex,physics,cond-mat,hep-lat,quant-ph,gr-qc,hep-ph,hep-th/1/OR+OR+abs:+AND+AND+loop+quantum+OR+cosmology+gravi ty+abs:+AND+AND+quantum+gravity+OR+OR+discrete+phe nomenology+OR+canonical+nonperturbative+abs:+OR+OR +spinfoam+AND+spin+foam+AND+OR+triply+doubly+speci al/0/1/0/1996/0/1
Year 1997:
http://arXiv.org/find/nucl-ex,astro-ph,nucl-th,math-ph,hep-ex,physics,cond-mat,hep-lat,quant-ph,gr-qc,hep-ph,hep-th/1/OR+OR+abs:+AND+AND+loop+quantum+OR+cosmology+gravi ty+abs:+AND+AND+quantum+gravity+OR+OR+discrete+phe nomenology+OR+canonical+nonperturbative+abs:+OR+OR +spinfoam+AND+spin+foam+AND+OR+triply+doubly+speci al/0/1/0/1997/0/1
Year 1998:
http://arXiv.org/find/nucl-ex,astro-ph,nucl-th,math-ph,hep-ex,physics,cond-mat,hep-lat,quant-ph,gr-qc,hep-ph,hep-th/1/OR+OR+abs:+AND+AND+loop+quantum+OR+cosmology+gravi ty+abs:+AND+AND+quantum+gravity+OR+OR+discrete+phe nomenology+OR+canonical+nonperturbative+abs:+OR+OR +spinfoam+AND+spin+foam+AND+OR+triply+doubly+speci al/0/1/0/1998/0/1
Year 1999:
http://arXiv.org/find/nucl-ex,astro-ph,nucl-th,math-ph,hep-ex,physics,cond-mat,hep-lat,quant-ph,gr-qc,hep-ph,hep-th/1/OR+OR+abs:+AND+AND+loop+quantum+OR+cosmology+gravi ty+abs:+AND+AND+quantum+gravity+OR+OR+discrete+phe nomenology+OR+canonical+nonperturbative+abs:+OR+OR +spinfoam+AND+spin+foam+AND+OR+triply+doubly+speci al/0/1/0/1999/0/1
Year 2000:
http://arXiv.org/find/nucl-ex,astro-ph,nucl-th,math-ph,hep-ex,physics,cond-mat,hep-lat,quant-ph,gr-qc,hep-ph,hep-th/1/OR+OR+abs:+AND+AND+loop+quantum+OR+cosmology+gravi ty+abs:+AND+AND+quantum+gravity+OR+OR+discrete+phe nomenology+OR+canonical+nonperturbative+abs:+OR+OR +spinfoam+AND+spin+foam+AND+OR+triply+doubly+speci al/0/1/0/2000/0/1
Year 2001:
http://arXiv.org/find/nucl-ex,astro-ph,nucl-th,math-ph,hep-ex,physics,cond-mat,hep-lat,quant-ph,gr-qc,hep-ph,hep-th/1/OR+OR+abs:+AND+AND+loop+quantum+OR+cosmology+gravi ty+abs:+AND+AND+quantum+gravity+OR+OR+discrete+phe nomenology+OR+canonical+nonperturbative+abs:+OR+OR +spinfoam+AND+spin+foam+AND+OR+triply+doubly+speci al/0/1/0/2001/0/1
Year 2002:
http://arXiv.org/find/nucl-ex,astro-ph,nucl-th,math-ph,hep-ex,physics,cond-mat,hep-lat,quant-ph,gr-qc,hep-ph,hep-th/1/OR+OR+abs:+AND+AND+loop+quantum+OR+cosmology+gravi ty+abs:+AND+AND+quantum+gravity+OR+OR+discrete+phe nomenology+OR+canonical+nonperturbative+abs:+OR+OR +spinfoam+AND+spin+foam+AND+OR+triply+doubly+speci al/0/1/0/2002/0/1
Year 2003:
http://arXiv.org/find/nucl-ex,astro-ph,nucl-th,math-ph,hep-ex,physics,cond-mat,hep-lat,quant-ph,gr-qc,hep-ph,hep-th/1/OR+OR+abs:+AND+AND+loop+quantum+OR+cosmology+gravi ty+abs:+AND+AND+quantum+gravity+OR+OR+discrete+phe nomenology+OR+canonical+nonperturbative+abs:+OR+OR +spinfoam+AND+spin+foam+AND+OR+triply+doubly+speci al/0/1/0/2003/0/1
Last twelve months (e.g. 25 October 2003 to 25 October 2004):
http://arXiv.org/find/nucl-ex,astro-ph,nucl-th,math-ph,hep-ex,physics,cond-mat,hep-lat,quant-ph,gr-qc,hep-ph,hep-th/1/OR+OR+abs:+AND+AND+loop+quantum+OR+cosmology+gravi ty+abs:+AND+AND+quantum+gravity+OR+OR+discrete+phe nomenology+OR+canonical+nonperturbative+abs:+OR+OR +spinfoam+AND+spin+foam+AND+OR+triply+doubly+speci al/0/1/0/past/0/1


1994 61
1995 83
1996 72
1997 70
1998 67
1999 76
2000 89
2001 98
2002 121
2003 139
LTM 171

------

[marcus]

as long as I'm on current events and signals that QG is coming of age,
Loop and String are interspersed in this 6-day symposium at Playa del Carmen in November.

----LQG talks on the program---

Sixth Mexican School on Gravitation and Mathematical Physics
Approaches to Quantum Gravity
Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, Mexico, November 21-27, 2004

Monday 9:00 - 10:00 Course I, Quantum Geometry (1/3): Ashtekar

Tuesday 10:00 - 11:00 Course I, Quantum Geometry (2/3): Ashtekar
Tuesday 13:00 - 13:30 Spacetime Granularity and Lorentz Invariance: Sudarsky

Wednesday 13:00 - 13:30 Semiclassical Aspects and Phenomenology of Loop Quantum Gravity: Morales

Thursday 10:00 - 11:00 Plenary Talk 4, Black Holes and Quantum Gravity: Corichi
Thursday 11:30 - 12:30 Course VI, Loop Quantum Gravity and Spinfoams (1/3): Rovelli

Friday 10:00 - 11:00 Course I, Quantum Geometry (3/3): Ashtekar
Friday 11:30 - 12:30 Course VI, Loop Quantum Gravity and Spinfoams (2/3): Rovelli
Friday 17:00 - 18:00 Plenary talk 5, Loops and Strings: Smolin

Saturday 9:00 - 10:00 Course VI, Loop Quantum Gravity and Spinfoams (3/3): Rovelli
Saturday 10:00 - 11:00 Plenary talk 6, Selected Topics on Spin Foams: Perez
Saturday 12:30 - 13:30 Plenary talk 8, Loop Quantum Cosmology: Bojowald

---end exerpts---
Here's the link to the full program:
http://www.nuclecu.unam.mx/~gravit/EscuelaVI/english.html

the program also has other well-known people like John Barrow and Robert Wald---and includes string theorists such as Amanda Peet, Andrei Linde, and Renata Kallosh.
Renata Kallosh will be lecturing about the huge number of String Vacuum States (Kallosh and Linde were among the co-authors of the famous paper by Kachru et al)
So there are plenty string stars going to Playa del Carmen. Point is there is also Ashtekar, Rovelli, Smolin, Bojowald, Perez, Corichi...

thanks to nonunitary for bringing us at PF the news about this conference
and for providing the link

[PRodQuanta]

Awesome! I didn't realize this book was out. It'll be on my Christmas list.

Paden Roder

[nitin]

Rovelli's book is also available online as a .pdf draft on his homepage at CPT. But the version is not the fully final version published by CUP. Nevertheless, it is very worth having a look at. The pdf link is:

http://www.cpt.univ-mrs.fr/~rovelli/book.pdf

Nice studying =)