New stuff happening in Quantum Gravity

[marcus]

Simone Speziale is teaching an introductory course on LQG, and Perimeter has the videos online.
Lecture #1, 5 February:
http://pirsa.org/08020008/

Lecture #2, 7 February:
http://pirsa.org/08020012/
=====================

Lee Smolin is giving a more advanced QG course and there are about eight lectures online so far.
Lecture 1
http://pirsa.org/08010033/
Lecture 2A
http://pirsa.org/08010034/
Lecture 2B
http://pirsa.org/08010040/
Lecture 3A
http://pirsa.org/08010035/
Lecture 3B
http://pirsa.org/08010041/
Lecture 4
http://pirsa.org/08010036/
Lecture 5A
http://pirsa.org/08020024/
Lecture 5B
http://pirsa.org/08020029/
==================
Kirill Krasnov has given a talk on SELF DUAL GRAVITY at the ILQGS, for which the slides are available.
http://relativity.phys.lsu.edu/ilqgs/krasnov020508.pdf
Here is the Spring 2008 schedule for the ILQGS
http://relativity.phys.lsu.edu/ilqgs/schedulesp08.html
Jan 22 Quantum gravity and the information loss problem Madhavan Varadarajan Raman Research Institute
Feb 5 Self Dual Gravity Kirill Krasnov University of Nottingham
Feb 19 Improved effective equations in loop quantum cosmology Victor Taveras PennState
Mar 11 TBA
Mar 25 Manifestly gauge invariant relativistic perturbation theory Kristina Giesel AEI
Apr 8 TBA
Apr 22 New developements in the definition of the spinfoam vertex, and the loop-spinfoam relation Carlo Rovelli Marseille
May 6 QFT in Cosmological Space Times from LQC Speaker TBA
For more information and links here is the main ILQGS page:
http://relativity.phys.lsu.edu/ilqgs/

==================
Yidun Wan's seminar on network braid matter states
http://pirsa.org/08010044/
==================

Renate Loll's group has recently posted two papers applying CDT (causal dynamical triangulations) to non-critical string (field) theory. "Extra dimensions" are not required in this approach.

 

[marcus]

The Utrecht Triangulations QG group, that Renate Loll belongs to, has been busy in the past 6 months and has come out with several papers some of which go in unexpected directions (at least not expected by me.) Here are some papers since September 2007.
1. http://arxiv.org/abs/0802.0896
Title: Topology change in causal quantum gravity
Authors: J. Ambjorn, R. Loll, Y. Watabiki, W. Westra, S. Zohren
Comments: 4 pages, proceedings of the workshop JGRG 17 (Nagoya, Japan, December 2007)

2.http://arxiv.org/abs/0802.0719
Title: A String Field Theory based on Causal Dynamical Triangulations
Authors: J. Ambjorn, R. Loll, Y. Watabiki, W. Westra, S. Zohren
Comments: 29 pages, 4 figures

3. http://arxiv.org/abs/0712.2485
Title: Planckian Birth of the Quantum de Sitter Universe
Authors: J. Ambjorn, A. Gorlich, J. Jurkiewicz, R. Loll
Comments: 4 pages, 3 figures

4. http://arxiv.org/abs/0711.0273
Title: The Emergence of Spacetime, or, Quantum Gravity on Your Desktop
Authors: R. Loll
Comments: 21 pages, 11 figures, write-up of plenary talk at GR18, Sydney, July 2007

5. http://arxiv.org/abs/0709.2784
Title: Putting a cap on causality violations in CDT
Authors: J. Ambjorn, R. Loll, W. Westra, S. Zohren
Comments: 17 pages, 4 figures

I've highlighted a paper with Watabiki, dealing with a low-dimension case of string field theory.

On 11 February Pedro Machado, a PhD student of Loll's, will give a talk at the Utrecht ITP on
Exact RG flows, asymptotic safety and f(R) gravity
It points up the close relation between CDT and the Asymptotic Safety approach of Reuter, Percacci, Saueressig, and others.
Machado just posted a paper he did with Saueressig.
http://arxiv.org/abs/0712.0445

====================================
THIS IS NOT A NEW SOURCE but since a lot is happening recently with Triangulations QG some people might want to know the best quick introduction to this approach. Geoff C just reminded me of a 50 minute video of a November 2005 talk at Perimeter by Loll.
http://pirsa.org/05110012/
Loll has also written several review papers for nonspecialists, and some SciAm level stuff for general audience. These are listed at her website in either the Publications section or the Press section.
http://www.phys.uu.nl/~loll/Web/title/title.html
http://www.phys.uu.nl/~loll/Web/publications/publications.html

 

[Micha]

Great, Marcus. I didn't know about the Speziale stuff.

 

[marcus]

UPDATE Simone Speziale is teaching an introductory course on LQG, and Perimeter has the videos online.
Lecture #1, 5 February:
http://pirsa.org/08020008/

Lecture #2, 7 February:
http://pirsa.org/08020012/

Lecture #3, 12 February
http://pirsa.org/08020009/
=====================

Lee Smolin is giving a more advanced QG course and there are about ten lectures online so far.
Lecture 1
http://pirsa.org/08010033/
Lecture 2A
http://pirsa.org/08010034/
Lecture 2B
http://pirsa.org/08010040/
Lecture 3A
http://pirsa.org/08010035/
Lecture 3B
http://pirsa.org/08010041/
Lecture 4
http://pirsa.org/08010036/
Lecture 5A
http://pirsa.org/08020024/
Lecture 5B
http://pirsa.org/08020029/
Lecture 6A
http://pirsa.org/08020025/
Lecture 6B
http://pirsa.org/08020030/
==================
Kirill Krasnov has given a talk on SELF DUAL GRAVITY at the ILQGS, for which the AUDIO is now available.http://relativity.phys.lsu.edu/ilqgs/krasnov020508.mp3
When I posted earlier only the slides were available.
http://relativity.phys.lsu.edu/ilqgs/krasnov020508.pdf

The audio has some noise problems for the first 2/5 or 3/8 of the talk. But this part is non-essential overview and introduction. You can drag the Quicktime button over about 40 percent and it will restart on the good part. This will correspond to around slide #17, as I recall, but that is where the equations begin. Equation (1) and (2) are right around slide #17, as I recall.

It is an interesting talk. Ashtekar and Rovelli and Smolin were all asking Krasnov a lot of questions. I think the course of lectures that Smolin is now giving dovetails with Krasnov's new approach and provides background to it.

 

[marcus]

John Baez and Bertram Kostant each gave talks relating to E₈
at UC Riverside recently. Each talk was great in its own way and should get special mention. There should be a list of the best one-hour math videos, these would be on.

Here's the Baez talk
http://mainstream.ucr.edu/baez_02_12_stream.mov

Here's the Kostant talk
http://mainstream.ucr.edu/baez_02_12_guest_stream.mov
and here are Baez' notes from Kostant's talk, which can help you understand the video
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/kostant/summary.html

Kostant has given the talk at a number of universities. At UC San Diego, the announcement of the talk said:

Prof. Bertram Kostant Massachusetts Institute of Technology
On some of the mathematics in Garrett Lisi’s E(8) Theory of Everything
Abstract:
A physicist, Garrett Lisi, has published a highly controversal, but fascinating, paper purporting to go beyond the standard model in that it uni es all 4 forces of nature by using as gauge group the exceptional Lie group E(8). My talk, strictly mathematical, will be about an elaboration of the mathematics of E(8) which Lisi relies on to construct his theory.

Sunday, February 17, 2008 2:00 PM

Baez talk is a remarkably clear introduction to E₈ in which you learn what a a Dynkin diagram is and how to use them and think about them.
It starts with the densest way to lay out pennies on a table, and the densest way to stack oranges. In other words, a really intuitive visual down-to-earth approach to classifying Lie groups where you learn a lot more than you realize or bargained for.

And the Baez talk is the best possible entrylevel one hour preparation to watch the Kostant video. Which is mostly too technical for me to follow but can give you a whiff of an idea now and then.

It's good to have a reminder to check ILQG regularly for new online seminars:
http://relativity.phys.lsu.edu/ilqgs/

Victor Taveras recently gave a talk on Effective Equations for Loop Quantum Cosmology. The audio is not yet available but the PDF is here:
http://relativity.phys.lsu.edu/ilqgs/taveras021908.pdf

I'll update the Simone Speziale lectures listing. This is a really helpful introduction to Loop Quantum Gravity which treats
constrained systems, the meaning of diffeomorphism invariance, loops and spin networks:
Lecture #1, 5 February:
http://pirsa.org/08020008/

Lecture #2, 7 February:
http://pirsa.org/08020012/

Lecture #3, 12 February
http://pirsa.org/08020009/

Lecture #4, 14 February
http://pirsa.org/08020013/

Here are the Smolin lectures on Time in Quantum Gravity. I am guessing about the URLs of lectures 7A and 7B, which have not been posted yet as far as I know.
Lecture 1
http://pirsa.org/08010033/
Lecture 2A
http://pirsa.org/08010034/
Lecture 2B
http://pirsa.org/08010040/
Lecture 3A
http://pirsa.org/08010035/
Lecture 3B
http://pirsa.org/08010041/
Lecture 4
http://pirsa.org/08010036/
Lecture 5A
http://pirsa.org/08020024/
Lecture 5B
http://pirsa.org/08020029/
Lecture 6A
http://pirsa.org/08020025/
Lecture 6B
http://pirsa.org/08020030/
Lecture 7A
http://pirsa.org/08020026/
Lecture 7B
http://pirsa.org/08020031/

 

[marcus]

Pirsa fooled me! When the two Smolin lectures were posted, ones I expected would be 7A and 7B, they were listed as 6C and 6D.

And they had different url numbers!

Lecture 6C
http://pirsa.org/08020048
Lecture 6D
http://pirsa.org/08020049

So what I have in the previous post about Lectures 7A and B is wrong.

 

[starkind]

I havn't been able to get the Baez link to work. Something about real player not working. Is anyone else having this problem? I'll erase this to keep the thread clean.

 

[marcus]

I havn't been able to get the Baez link to work. Something about real player not working. Is anyone else having this problem? I'll erase this to keep the thread clean.

Richard, this is hardly clutter! Thanks for the alert. What Baez link doesn't work?
(I have a mac)

 

[xristy]

problem links to Baez's and Kostant's videos

Hello,

The links are not working for me either. If I go to http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/kostant/ and try the links for streaming the videos, the Quicktime viewer starts up and then after awhile reports a "400 Bad response" error from the streaming server - I'm using Mac OS X 10.5.1 and Safari.

If I try either of the downloadable video links such as http://mediaserve.ucr.edu/baez/baez_02_12_stream.mov then after several minutes I get a timeout reporting that the file doesn't exist.

X

 

[marcus]

If I try either of the downloadable video links such as http://mediaserve.ucr.edu/baez/baez_02_12_stream.mov then after several minutes I get a timeout reporting that the file doesn't exist.

X

I watched the talk by Baez twice all the way through, earlier. After i saw your post I decided to try it again. This time I could not connect to the UC Riverside server.
Your guess is as good as mine. One possibility is the server is overloaded. Too many people trying to watch Baez lecture.

 

[starkind]

Still no luck with the Baez vids. Maybe it is because I run Windows and the software (quick time) appears to be an Apple product.

 

[marcus]

I'm sorry to hear you are still having trouble. things were acting up for me too, but now are back to normal.

BTW I just watched a PI talk by John Moffatt
http://pirsa.org/08020047/
It was quite interesting. Based on recent work with Toth he is making a number of
astonishing claims for his Modified Gravity scheme MOG.
It appears to cope with the Bullet Cluster data handily, and so not to be shot down in the general MOND debacle. He also says that once two parameters are fixed once and for all, there are no free parameters in the system----thus his MOG will make unequivocal predictions which can be tested.

In case anyone is interested, here is the abstract:

Modified Gravity and Its Consequences for Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology
John Moffat - Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

"The consequences of a modified gravity (MOG) are explored. I demonstrate how the solutions of the field equations obtained from the action principle of the MOG lead to a theory without any free, adjustable parameters or ad-hoc empirical formulae. The theory successfully explains solar system observations, the dispersion velocities of globular clusters, the rotation curves of galaxies, the mass profiles of X-ray clusters, the dispersion velocities of satellite galaxies, the Bullet Cluster and cosmological observations without exotic dark matter. The peculiar features of the recent data obtained for the merging cluster Abell 520 are discussed. MOG predicts agreement with data from the scale of the solar system to cosmological scales without dark matter. With no undetermined free parameters, the theory can be used to make firm predictions that may be verifiable in the foreseeable future."
19/02/2008

MUCH of the content of the talk can be found in a recent Arxiv posting, which makes good reading to go along with the video lecture.
http://arxiv.org/abs/0712.1796
Fundamental parameter-free solutions in Modified Gravity
J. W. Moffat, V. T. Toth
8 pages, 5 figures
(Submitted on 11 Dec 2007)

"Modified Gravity (MOG) has been used successfully to explain the rotation curves of galaxies, the motion of galaxy clusters, the Bullet Cluster, and cosmological observations without the use of dark matter or Einstein's cosmological constant. We now have the ability to demonstrate how these solutions can be obtained directly from the action principle, without resorting to ad-hoc parameter choices or empirical formulae. We obtain approximate solutions to the theory's field equations that, after the values of integration constants are determined from observation, show excellent agreement with data from the scale of the solar system to cosmological scales. With no undetermined free parameters, the theory can be used to make firm predictions that may be practically verifiable in the foreseeable future."

 

[ccdantas]

Hi all:

I cannot download Baez's video (baez_02_12_stream.mov) as well. I'm using a mac, safari, quicktime.Christine

 

[starkind]

I got the Baez vid to work on my machine by downloading a new copy of quick time from the Apple website. However, it played for a while and then broke up...after several tries, I got about 3/4 through.

Baez is teaching here at about my level of understanding. I wonder what course this is?

 

[turbo]

Hi all:

I cannot download Baez's video (baez_02_12_stream.mov) as well. I'm using a mac, safari, quicktime.


Christine

Try again, Christine. I just watched it, and though there is a nagging low-frequency hum in the audio, it was watchable.

 

[ccdantas]

Try again, Christine. I just watched it, and though there is a nagging low-frequency hum in the audio, it was watchable.

Hi turbo-1

Just tried again, but all I get is a timeout.

I have also sent a trackback to their blog from my post, but it did not appear there...

Christine

 

[turbo]

I'm using a plain-vanilla PC running XP SP2 over a DSL connection and the video came up fine. Try purging your browser's cache and see if you can connect after that.

 

[starkind]

I got through the whole Baez vid up until the last minute or so. I'd like to discuss some things about it. I am not sure about the method used to raise the dimension by adding "same sized" spheres to the spaces between spheres. I guess it works because the added spheres are removed in another dimension where the size is arbitrary. This is like when looking at a two dimensional print photograph of a three dimensional set of objects, we know that an object further away (in the third dimension) will look smaller. The new spheres look smaller, but that is because they are "farther away" in the 4th dimension.

About the idea that they are all one unit from the origin, that seems to be part of the conditions of the definition...closest kissing spheres will always be one unit from the origin, because the origin is defined as the center of the sphere, radius = 1.

I think we are finally getting down to the bones of the dimensional questions which keep coming back. People want to know how we do geometry in higher dimensions. Well, now I see how it is done. I still have to validate the method in my own mind, because I do not intuitively see the logic of merely adding new (smaller) spheres to the spaces.

I usually try to do dimensions by moving the minimal shape of a dimension in a new orthagonal direction. A point becomes a line in this way, a line becomes a plane, a plane becomes a volume. The minimum stack of spheres that requires three dimensions is the tetrahedral form, where the centers of each sphere in the group are the vertices of a tetrahedron. I try to imagine shifting that along a new orthagonal basis line, one which is at right angles to the other three. I usually choose time as the 4th basis line, and lay it down parallel to one of the 3 dimensional volumetric basis lines, so the shift is represented by a simple doubling. That part seems more or less to match the method Baez describes.

Perhaps a better way to choose a fourth basis line would be to use scale as the new basis. Then we can imagine the shift being one of size. The cubeoctahedron (3 dimensional) is expanded until a new orange fits in the spaces between. The new orange is still the same size as the originals, but the original 'old' oranges have gotten large enough to admit the 'new' oranges.

 

[marcus]

Glad you got the Baez video to run! It is a wonderful talk. I think it may echo some TWFs from back around #63-65. I haven't checked. But if so, the online TWFs could serve as lecture notes for better understanding.

Keeping up with the New Stuff theme. The program of the APS meeting in St Louis is out.
http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/APR08/Content/1034
The meeting will be 10-15 April.
Abhay Ashtekar is giving an invited talk, as is Jorge Pullin.
http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/APR08/APS_Invited

Ashtekar, Abhay Session B7.00002 Singularity Resolution in Loop Quantum Gravity
http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/APR08/Event/82745
Pullin, Jorge Session M7.00002 Recent developments in loop quantum gravity
http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/APR08/Event/83488

They expect about 1200 physicists to attend the April 2008 APS meeting. For an overview see
http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/APR08/APS_epitome
The sessions are in alphabetical order----B is on the second day, Saturday morning 12 April.
M is halfway through the conference, Sunday afternoon 13 April.
W is at the end, Tuesday morning 15 April.

 

[ccdantas]

Wow. Right after finally seeing the first images of John Baez, my browser (Safari 2.0.4) disapeared and the program was shutdown.

Then tried Firefox 2.0.0.6. The same happened! I'm using Quicktime 7.2.

Maybe I need to upgrade, or perhaps it is because I'm running a simulation in my mac at the same time. I'll try again later.

 

[starkind]

This morning the internet is incredibly slow...took an hour to get here. I wonder if this is www- wide. Heard something on TV last nite about a censorship program in Pakistan that got out into the web...

 

[marcus]

Christine, Richard,
so far I haven't been experiencing these troubles----except once for a while with Baez website which could have simply been overload on the server.
They sound enormously aggravating. I think they would make me consider taking up golf or knitting----anything but the internet.

I appreciate your keeping us posted for two reasons. One is that people like Turbo may be able to come up with useful suggestions. they may understand what is going on and help. the other is that for (uncomprehending people like) me it serves as a warning of how quickly web ailments can develop and seize both clueless and clueful alike

 

[starkind]

Hi Marcus

I took up a long walk and stopped into an internet cafe along the way. Things are working there, so it was my system again. Shut it down and started all over and it is working now.

The main weirdness in my system is that the sound cuts out often. Even the speaker volume icon on the task bar dissappears. I fiddle around in the menus until it comes back on again, but I never can seem to figure out what I did, if anything, that made the difference.

I'll try the Kostant video again now.

 

[xristy]

still problems with accessing Baez and Kostant

It is excellent that others are having success. I am located in Nepal and have comparatively low bandwidth options available. Normally I prefer to download audio and video lectures rather than stream as bandwidth is insufficient for streaming.

I have no problems downloading from Perimeter Institute or other locations so it's not a generic problem with Nepal or my system - Mac OS X 10.5.1.

Now when I try the "downloadable video" links on the page at http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/kostant/ I get a prompt asking for a username and password - this is a change from the previous timeout waiting for a connection that was occurring.

When I try to access the "streaming video" links - which are on "mainstream.ucr.edu" rather than "mediaserve.ucr.edu" I get "Bad Request" from Quicktime, VLC and Firefox. Trying the same on Windows XP, I get the same results. I have tried with two different Internet Service Providers and get the same response so it would not seem to be a specific operating system or service provider. Is it the fact that I am accessing from Nepal (which is easy to discover via the IP addresses)?

In any event I did send an email to Baez but got no reply - which I didn't really expect.

ciao,
X

 

[pelastration]

I think we are finally getting down to the bones of the dimensional questions which keep coming back. People want to know how we do geometry in higher dimensions. Well, now I see how it is done. I still have to validate the method in my own mind, because I do not intuitively see the logic of merely adding new (smaller) spheres to the spaces.

Riemann originally used a crumpled paper sheet (becoming a multilayered ball) to explain hidden and added dimensions. You can interpret this as folded subsets (local origami), not just spheres. A 2D-membrane can create that way - locally - 3D-subsets. The 3D-subsets are however still 2D-membrane.

Dirk

 

[ccdantas]

It is excellent that others are having success. I am located in Nepal and have comparatively low bandwidth options available. Normally I prefer to download audio and video lectures rather than stream as bandwidth is insufficient for streaming.

I have no problems downloading from Perimeter Institute or other locations so it's not a generic problem with Nepal or my system - Mac OS X 10.5.1.

Now when I try the "downloadable video" links on the page at http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/kostant/ I get a prompt asking for a username and password - this is a change from the previous timeout waiting for a connection that was occurring.

When I try to access the "streaming video" links - which are on "mainstream.ucr.edu" rather than "mediaserve.ucr.edu" I get "Bad Request" from Quicktime, VLC and Firefox. Trying the same on Windows XP, I get the same results. I have tried with two different Internet Service Providers and get the same response so it would not seem to be a specific operating system or service provider. Is it the fact that I am accessing from Nepal (which is easy to discover via the IP addresses)?

In any event I did send an email to Baez but got no reply - which I didn't really expect.

ciao,
X

Hello. What ou describe appears to be exactly my situation. I'm trying to access from Brazil with no success. I have no problem downloading PI/PIRSA videos.

Good luck anyway.

Christine

 

[ccdantas]

I've just reported this problem directly at his blog (n-Category Café). Let us see if the problem can be identified and solved.

Christine

 

[marcus]

This year's main QG conference will be at Nottingham UK in early July.
The conference now has a website:
http://www.maths.nottingham.ac.uk/r...ntum_geometry_and_quantum_gravity_conference/

They call it the "QG²" conference---QG squared for Quantum Geometry and Quantum Gravity.
So for typographical ease it gets written "QG2"

The website has the list of organizers, a preliminary program statement, the advisory panel, and roughly fifty participants who have registered so far (I didn't count, just eyeballed).

 

[marcus]

There are links to four more of the Smolin lectures on Time in Quantum Gravity.
Lecture 1
http://pirsa.org/08010033/
Lecture 2A
http://pirsa.org/08010034/
Lecture 2B
http://pirsa.org/08010040/
Lecture 3A
http://pirsa.org/08010035/
Lecture 3B
http://pirsa.org/08010041/
Lecture 4
http://pirsa.org/08010036/
Lecture 5A
http://pirsa.org/08020024/
Lecture 5B
http://pirsa.org/08020029/
Lecture 6A
http://pirsa.org/08020025/
Lecture 6B
http://pirsa.org/08020030/
Lecture 6C
http://pirsa.org/08020048
Lecture 6D
http://pirsa.org/08020049
Lecture 7A
http://pirsa.org/08020027/
Lecture 7B
http://pirsa.org/08020032/
Lecture 8A
http://pirsa.org/08030019/
Lecture 8B
http://pirsa.org/08030023/

For completeness here are the February 2008 Introduction to LQG lectures by Simone Speziale
covering constrained systems, diffeomorphism invariance, loops and spin networks:
Lecture #1
http://pirsa.org/08020008/
Lecture #2
http://pirsa.org/08020012/
Lecture #3
http://pirsa.org/08020009/
Lecture #4
http://pirsa.org/08020013/

In case anyone missed it, here's the Baez talk
http://mainstream.ucr.edu/baez_02_12_stream.mov
and the Kostant talk that went with it
http://mainstream.ucr.edu/baez_02_12_guest_stream.mov
Here are Baez' notes from Kostant's talk, which help understand the video
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/kostant/summary.html

 

[ccdantas]

Sorry, I forgot to post the situation back here (I answered only at n-Cat café). Now Baez's video can be downloaded without problems, but streaming still makes my browser crash.

 

[marcus]

The latest in Lee Smolin's series of lectures
Lecture 9A
http://pirsa.org/08030020/
Lecture 9B
http://pirsa.org/08030024/

The slides are available from some of the talks at the March 2008 Zakopane Loop+Foam Workshop.
Richard Kostecki, who took care of organizing the workshop, has posted the slides and earlier recommended first looking at those of Ashtekar, Thiemann, and Dittrich
http://www.fuw.edu.pl/~kostecki/zakopane08/

 

[marcus]

This year's main QG conference will be at Nottingham UK in early July.
The conference now has a website:
http://www.maths.nottingham.ac.uk/r...ntum_geometry_and_quantum_gravity_conference/

They call it the "QG²" conference---QG squared for Quantum Geometry and Quantum Gravity.
So for typographical ease it gets written "QG2"

The website has the list of organizers, a preliminary program statement, the advisory panel, and roughly fifty participants who have registered so far (I didn't count, just eyeballed).

They now have 10 invited speakers lined up, roughly half Loop and half Noncommutative Geometry. On the Loop side it is a mix between LQG+Spinfoam and LQC (loop quantum cosmology).
About 60 registered participants so far.

Smolin's Lecture 10 video is now available online
http://pirsa.org/08030021/

 

[marcus]

The July QG2 conference now has 11 invited speakers lined up, roughly half (Loop) Quantum Gravity and half Noncommutative Geometry.
Shaping up well. 80-plus participants registered so far.

Smolin's Lecture 10 video
http://pirsa.org/08030021/

Lectures 11A and 11B
http://pirsa.org/08030022/
http://pirsa.org/08030026/

Smolin's lectures 12A and 12 B
http://pirsa.org/08040011/
http://pirsa.org/08040013/

 

[geoffc]

Audio and lectures from First Quantum Geometry and Quantum Gravity School:

http://www.fuw.edu.pl/~kostecki/school.html

 

[marcus]

The main Quantum Gravity and Quantum Geometry conference this year will be at Nottingham UK in early July.
Here is website:
http://www.maths.nottingham.ac.uk/r...ntum_geometry_and_quantum_gravity_conference/

There are 12 invited speakers listed so far:


Abhay Ashtekar Quantum cosmology


Ali Chamseddine Connections between noncommutative geometry, spectral action and quantum gravity


Laurent Freidel The construction and semi-classical limit of spin foam models for 4d gravity


Bernard Kay The puzzles of decoherence and thermodynamical behaviour


Jerzy Lewandowski QFT in quantum curved space-time


Shahn Majid TBA


Martin Reuter Asymptotic Safety: general ideas and recent results


Vincent Rivasseau Non-commutative renormalisation


Carlo Rovelli On the relation between loops and foams


Subir Sarkar Astroparticle probes of quantum gravity


Peter Schupp Noncommutative gravity, twists and fuzzy black holes


Harold Steinacker Dynamical quantum spaces, matrix models and gravity