Speaker
Steve Carlip
Description
Classical spacetimes have Lorentzian metrics, and the resulting
light cone structure is crucial to a broad range of results,
from singularity theorems to the propagation of gravitational
waves. In quantum gravity, though, we expect quantum
fluctuations to smear light cones, blurring the causal
structure. I will briefly review some of the problems -- and
some of the potential benefits -- presented by this blurring,
and discuss a few efforts, such as the discrete causal set
approach, to address causal structure in quantum gravity.
