You are made of space-time

By Aussiegirl

This abbreviated article, with the provocative title, was all the online edition of New Scientist published-- you have to subscribe to the print edition to get the rest of it, which I don't. But the contents seem fascinating enough to post just this much, along with this introduction to the Wikipedia article on loop quantum gravity: Loop quantum gravity (LQG), also known as loop gravity and quantum geometry, is a proposed quantum theory of spacetime which attempts to reconcile the seemingly incompatible theories of quantum mechanics and general relativity. This theory is one of a family of theories called canonical quantum gravity. It was developed in parallel with loop quantization, a rigorous framework for nonperturbative quantization of diffeomorphism-invariant gauge theory. In plain English this is a quantum theory of gravity in which the very space that all other physics occurs in is quantized. Loop quantum gravity (LQG) is a proposed theory of spacetime which is built from the ground up with the idea of spacetime quantization via the mathematically rigorous theory of loop quantization. It preserves many of the important features of general relativity, such as local Lorentz invariance, while at the same time employing quantization of both space and time at the Planck scale in the tradition of quantum mechanics.

New Scientist Premium- You are made of space-time - Features

You are made of space-time
12 August 2006
Davide Castelvecchi, Valerie Jamieson

Physical particles may seem very different from the space-time they inhabit, but what if the two are one and the same thing? New Scientist investigates.
LEE SMOLIN is no magician. Yet he and his colleagues have pulled off one of the greatest tricks imaginable. Starting from nothing more than Einstein's general theory of relativity, they have conjured up the universe. Everything from the fabric of space to the matter that makes up wands and rabbits emerges as if out of an empty hat.

It is an impressive feat. Not only does it tell us about the origins of space and matter, it might help us understand where the laws of the universe come from. Not surprisingly, Smolin, who is a theoretical physicist at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario, is very excited. "I've been jumping up and down about these ideas," he says.

This promising approach to understanding the cosmos is based on a collection of theories called loop quantum gravity, an attempt to merge general relativity and quantum mechanics into a single consistent theory. ...