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A week ago in Dublin John Baez gave one of the plenary talks
the title was:
Loop Quantum Gravity, Quantum Geometry and Spin Foams
this talk is now available online (PS format) from Baez website
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/lectures.html#lqg
click on where it says:
"You can see the transparencies of this talk:... - Postscript version."
the talk is a tutorial with lots of pictures and good explanatory language
It is one of the best introductions to LQG and allied QG approaches that I've seen---the math is there but in its most basic and intuitive form.
The slides are not too abbreviated to read discursively---some care was taken. The summary given here says part of it but does not indicate how conceptual and pictorial the talk actually is. Check it out!
"The last few years have seen the techniques of loop quantum gravity applied to a growing number of problems. They have been used to compute the entropy of various sorts of black holes, including those with non-minimally coupled matter, for which the entropy is not proportional to the area. Perhaps more importantly, loop quantum gravity has given us a clear picture of the quantum geometry of the horizon, which accounts for the microscopic degrees of freedom responsible for black hole entropy. There are tantalizing connections to Hod's work on quasinormal modes, but these remain mysterious. Combined with traditional ideas on quantum cosmology, loop quantum gravity has led to new insights on how quantization can eliminate the singular behavior of geometry at the big bang - perhaps with testable consequences. Predictions of Lorentz symmetry violation may also be experimentally testable, but these remain controversial. Finally, the dynamics of the theory is being studied with the help of spin foam models. My talk will survey all this work with a bare minimum of technical details."
the title was:
Loop Quantum Gravity, Quantum Geometry and Spin Foams
this talk is now available online (PS format) from Baez website
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/lectures.html#lqg
click on where it says:
"You can see the transparencies of this talk:... - Postscript version."
the talk is a tutorial with lots of pictures and good explanatory language
It is one of the best introductions to LQG and allied QG approaches that I've seen---the math is there but in its most basic and intuitive form.
The slides are not too abbreviated to read discursively---some care was taken. The summary given here says part of it but does not indicate how conceptual and pictorial the talk actually is. Check it out!
"The last few years have seen the techniques of loop quantum gravity applied to a growing number of problems. They have been used to compute the entropy of various sorts of black holes, including those with non-minimally coupled matter, for which the entropy is not proportional to the area. Perhaps more importantly, loop quantum gravity has given us a clear picture of the quantum geometry of the horizon, which accounts for the microscopic degrees of freedom responsible for black hole entropy. There are tantalizing connections to Hod's work on quasinormal modes, but these remain mysterious. Combined with traditional ideas on quantum cosmology, loop quantum gravity has led to new insights on how quantization can eliminate the singular behavior of geometry at the big bang - perhaps with testable consequences. Predictions of Lorentz symmetry violation may also be experimentally testable, but these remain controversial. Finally, the dynamics of the theory is being studied with the help of spin foam models. My talk will survey all this work with a bare minimum of technical details."
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