
String Theory Might Merge with Loop Quantum Gravity - colinprince
http://www.wired.com/2016/01/string-theory-might-merge-with-the-other-theory-of-everything/
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Steuard
[Disclaimer up front: I'm a string theorist, so add grains of salt
appropriately.]

First impression: this article's title (and some of the phrasing within the
article) feels a little misleading to me. In the conversations I've seen or
had with Loop Quantum Gravity people, I've almost never seen it presented as a
"Theory of Everything". My impression has been that most LQG folks were proud
that their work was _purely_ focused on quantum gravity, without the added
mess of trying to solve everything in one fell swoop.

Second impression: In my experience, most string theorists (certainly not all)
have had no particular animosity toward LQG. It's another theory, it's not the
one we're personally excited about, but more power to them. Maybe the two will
meet in the middle someday, maybe not. In all my years of spending time with
string theorists, I only saw a few cases of outright animosity, and LQG talks
were greeted with respect but skepticism by most. So I always feel weird about
articles that frame this as some sort of knock-down fight. If there's finally
some hint of common ground, all the better: more tools for everybody!

~~~
maaku
Armchair physicist here... just relying on an undergraduate physics degree, so
please correct any naïve misconceptions, but:

Isn't resolving quantum theory with gravity the only remaining hurdle to a
theory of everything? Other than unifying the standard model with general
relativity, what else is left?

~~~
trhway
>Other than unifying the standard model with general relativity, what else is
left?

i wonder where the dark matter&energy fits here :)

~~~
rotorblade
In the way string theory does it -- unify SM (or generic QFTs) and GR, that is
-- there emerges several new things that could give answers to dark matter
(for example weakly interacting SUSY particles) and dark energy/cosmological
constant (possibly ("anti"-)branes and other sources of positive vacuum
energy).

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bsharitt
I don't think the DoJ will let the merger go through.

