The Importance of Quantum Gravity

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There was never a moment when the community of physicists said, yes, let's try to do quantum gravity. Gravity is a very weak force. You can't make gravitons and detect them in a particle accelerator. We do not know how to do experiments in the regime where both quantum mechanics and gravity are simultaneously relevant. Because of that, it's very hard to make progress in quantum gravity.

Physics is in crisis, what else is new? That's what we hear in certain corners, anyway, usually pointed at "fundamental" physics of particles and fields. (Condensed matter and biophysics etc. are just fine.) In this solo podcast I ruminate on the unusual situation fundamental physics finds itself in, where we have a theoretical understanding that fits almost all the data, but which nobody believes to be the final answer. I talk about how we got here, and argue that it's not really a "crisis" in any real sense. But there are ways I think the academic community could handle the problem better, especially by making more space for respectable but minority approaches to deep puzzles.

Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2023/07/31/245-solo-the-crisis-in-physics/

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