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Space-time Lego. Willem Westra And Stefan Zohren. Our goal. Find a theory of Gravity for very, very small scales Einstein’s theory of gravity: works well for big things such as stars and planets Small scales: Quantum Mechanics. The big stuff: Gravity.
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Space-time Lego Willem Westra And Stefan Zohren
Our goal • Find a theory of Gravity for very, very small scales • Einstein’s theory of gravity: works well for big things such as stars and planets • Small scales: Quantum Mechanics...
The big stuff: Gravity Einstein’s theory of general relativity, 1918
Gravity = Geometry Gravity: curvature of space-time • Matter curves space-time • Curved space-time tells matter how to move
The small: Quantum mechanics Schrödinger’s equation, 1927
Quantum Mechanics • Everything that can happen... does happen • What we see is the stuff that is most probable to happen
big + small gravity + quantum curved space-time + probability
Curved space + quantum • Task: count all possible curved space-times Compute the most probable ones • Solution: build space time from little “Lego blocks” Count the number of ways the Lego blocks can be put together
1+1 dimensional space times • One dimension of space • One dimension of time • Simplest Lego blocks: triangles • Task: count the number of ways one can glue triangles together
N N N Counting the triangles
N Counting the triangles N+1 N+1