ADS CFT and Quantum Gravity in the Real World

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In the 60s and 70s, when people were doing string theory, they were scattering strings. In the 80s, this idea of compactifying and looking at different ways of getting string theory connected to four dimensional physics became popular. And in the ADS CFT correspondence, you have a duality that relates quantum gravity string theory in particular in 10 dimensional space time,. Compactified in a certain way to quantum field theory in four dimensional space time.

Quantum gravity research is inspired by experiment — all of the experimental data that supports quantum mechanics, and supports general relativity — but it’s only inspiration, not detailed guidance. So it’s easy to “do research on quantum gravity” and get lost in a world of toy models and mathematical abstraction. Today’s guest, Andrew Strominger, is a leading researcher in string theory and quantum gravity, and one who has always kept his eyes on the prize: connecting to the real world. We talk about the development of string theory, the puzzle of a positive cosmological constant, and how black holes and string theory can teach us about each other.

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Andrew Strominger received his Ph.D. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is currently the Gwill E. York Professor of Physics at Harvard University. Among his awards are the Dirac Medal, the Klein Medal, the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

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