Is Fotini Markopoulou Redefining Planckian Physics in Her Latest Paper?

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Fotini Markopoulou's latest paper presents a non-reductionist perspective on Planckian physics, arguing that more fundamental physics does not necessarily simplify the concepts derived from it. This approach aligns with P.W. Anderson's philosophy of "less is more." The paper discusses background-independent condensed matter models for quantum gravity, highlighting challenges such as the clash between the timelessness of general relativity and emergent concepts. It also reviews models that utilize quantum information theory to derive properties like the speed of light from non-geometric systems.

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John86
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Thank you Marcus for spotting this paper.

Fotini Markopoulou takes a non reductionist view of Planckian physics in this latest writing, where more fundamental physics doesn't have to be more or less simpler than the physics emerging from it. This line of thinking remind me P.W. Anderson's "less is more".

Reactions are welcome.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1011.5754
Background independent condensed matter models for quantum gravity
Alioscia Hamma, Fotini Markopoulou
Contribution submitted to the focus issue of the New Journal of Physics on "Classical and Quantum Analogues for Gravitational Phenomena and Related Effects", R. Schuetzhold, U. Leonhardt and C. Maia, Eds.
(Submitted on 26 Nov 2010)
"A number of recent proposals for a quantum theory of gravity are based on the idea that spacetime geometry and gravity are derivative concepts and only apply at an approximate level. There are two fundamental challenges to any such approach. At the conceptual level, there is a clash between the 'timelessness' of general relativity and emergence. Second, the lack of a fundamental spacetime makes difficult the straightforward application of well-known methods of statistical physics to the problem. We recently initiated a study of such problems using spin systems based on evolution of quantum networks with no a priori geometric notions as models for emergent geometry and gravity. In this article we review two such models. The first is a model of emergent (flat) space and matter and we show how to use methods from quantum information theory to derive features such as speed of light from a non-geometric quantum system. The second model exhibits interacting matter and geometry, with the geometry defined by the behavior of matter. This model has primitive notions of gravitational attraction which we illustrate with a toy black hole, and exhibits entanglement between matter and geometry and thermalization of the quantum geometry."
 
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Wouldn't you consider AdS/CFT a working example of this philosophy?
 
Atvy,

Maybe yes, to be honest i do not have that much knowledge of ADS/CFT to make a point. But my simple intuition would say its quit probable that it could work like that, yes
 

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