“There are different ways to explain it, but one is that the amount of information you can put in a volume is not proportional to the volume but to the surface area surrounding the volume,” Giddings explained. A relativistic picture indicates that the information gets destroyed as the black hole slowly evaporates, while quantum mechanics states that that information cannot be destroyed.Ī suggested approach to that conundrum and other similarly complex issues emerges with the proposed holographic principle, a fundamentally new idea about the possible behavior of quantum gravity. That’s where relativity and quantum mechanics violently conflict on the issue of what happens to information that falls into a black hole, those extremely high-gravity voids in spacetime. Reconciling relativity to quantum mechanics has challenged physicists for the better part of a century, with puzzles such as the black hole information paradox. “Their support should really move this research forward.” “We are thrilled that the Heising-Simons Foundation has chosen to support this vision of exploring new effects, particularly at long distances, in quantum gravity, and the possibility that they lead to observational effects,” Giddings said of the $3.1 million in multi-institution grants to help the team push the boundaries of our knowledge of quantum gravity. “We are taking this seriously.”Īnd, thanks to support from the Heising-Simons Foundation, the team is poised to bridge that chasm, by exploring ways in which quantum gravity may be observed, via effects a longer length scales. “Various theoretical developments have indicated that quantum gravity effects may become important at much greater distances in certain contexts, and that is truly exciting and worth exploring,” Giddings said. It’s also far beyond observational reach.īut what if it was possible to detect quantum gravity at longer, observable length scales? Giddings, and fellow theorists Kathryn Zurek and Yanbei Chen at Caltech, Cynthia Keeler and Maulik Parikh at Arizona State University, and Ben Freivogel and Erik Verlinde at University of Amsterdam, think that could be the case. Traditional thinking leads one to believe that quantum aspects of gravity are only observable if we explore incredibly short distances, he said, such as the Planck length (10 -35 meter), thought to be the smallest length in the universe and the length at which quantum gravity effects become important. “Associated with that problem is a gulf between theory and observation,” said Giddings, who specializes in high energy and gravitational theory, as well as quantum black holes, quantum cosmology and other quantum aspects of gravity. The universe is quantum, and unlike the other fundamental forces - the electromagnetic, the weak and the strong nuclear forces - which have been described within quantum field theory, what we know of gravitation remains solidly in the realm of classical physics. “There is the longstanding problem, perhaps the greatest remaining from 20 th century physics, of reconciling quantum mechanics with gravity,” said UC Santa Barbara theoretical physicist Steven Giddings. However, for all the advances we’ve made in witnessing the more readily observable, macro effects of gravity, there remains a gap - a chasm, really - in our ability to understand gravity in the context of another profound discovery: quantum mechanics, the physics of matter and energy at their smallest scales. In the intervening decades, numerous observations have borne Einstein out, with phenomena such as gravitational lensing and redshift, shifts in planetary orbit and, more recently, gravitational waves and observations of black holes. About a century ago, Albert Einstein amazed the world with his groundbreaking theory of relativity, and ever since he shared this profound understanding of gravity and spacetime, physicists everywhere have worked hard to prove, refine and extend it.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |