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RE: String Theory I [The great conflict]

in #science7 years ago (edited)

Thanks for taking the initiative. I haven't read the whole article yet, but the following statement is not correct in my opinion.

" In today's form, general relativity and quantum mechanics can not be correct at the same time.
It is impossible to reconcile the two greatest theories that allowed us to describe the expansion of the universe and the structure of matter
."

For instance, GR could be asymptotically safe. For technical details of what it means, check out this encyclopedic article. For a recent popularization of the concept, check out this article published in Quanta magazine.

Also, one could argue that if GR is a low energy limit of something else, then it is perfectly fine that GR is "non-renormalizeable", just like many other useful low energy effective field theories such as the Chiral Pertubation Theory . As John Donoghue puts it in his encyclopedic article:

"The problem of quantum gravity is not what we once thought it was. If you go back to early references, you will find many statements saying that general relativity and quantum mechanics are incompatible, that the combination of general relativity and quantum field theory produces a meaningless theory. It is understandable that some of the pioneers may have thought in this way, as some of our quantum methods are awkward when dealing with general relativity. However, these statements are not correct. "