And the laymen appreciate it as well.
For further clarity:
If we could step outside the universe and run the cosmic clock in reverse would the spatial dimensions that comprise our universe compactify and change shape as they became smaller, or would the dimensions collapse evenly and smoothly...
Here's my understanding, though I give it not as an answer but as a self evaluation. Maybe someone with greater understanding could correct my misunderstandings or misstatements.
It may seem to be a contradiction but it is not. At the moment of the big bang the entire universe was indeed an...
I see now! Thank you Randall.
I was under the impression that the goal was to develop a theory that incorporated both. I knew that relativity didn't use gravitons, but I didn't know that QT didn't require the geometry of GTR at all. That clarifies a great deal.
Come to think of it, now I have...
I was going more the other way with the question. I had assumed, falsely it seems, that theories that modeled gravity on a quantum level would be concerned with addressing the geometries that general relativity describes on macroscopic scales.
I suppose that this is as good as any place to post the following question:
From a theoretical standpoint, how do gravitons cause space time to warp? I understand them carrying force, like any other messenger particle, at the quantum level, but I can't see how that causes the spatial fabric to...
David Peat mentioned in his book on string theory that for a while a 5th force, called the glue force, was being considered. I haven't found any other source, though I haven't searched very hard for one, that explains what this force is. The messenger particle was thought to be a gluon, but it...