Michio Kaku is out of control! Eric Weinstein on the Joe Rogan Experience

Quantum gravity is a theoretical field of physics that aims to unify quantum mechanics and gravitational physics.

However, it has been stagnant for 70 years since the 1950s. Even the most respected physicists like Edward Witten have failed to make any significant progress in quantum gravity.

Some physicists have suggested developing a new theory to replace the current model, but no one has come up with a feasible solution yet.

Meanwhile, singularity remains an unexplained phenomena, and physicists and mathematicians believe that there is a need for a successor theory to Einstein's model.

• Quantum gravity aims to unite quantum mechanics and gravitational physics.
• The field has been stagnant for 70 years since the 1950s.
• Edward Witten is a prominent physicist who has failed to make any significant breakthroughs in quantum gravity.
• Singularity remains an unexplained phenomena in current theoretical models.
• Physicists and mathematicians are aware of the need for a successor theory to Einstein's model.
• A new theory to replace quantum gravity has yet to be developed.

The 70-year stagnation in quantum gravity 00:00

• During the 1950s, something happened that resulted in a 70-year stagnation in the field of quantum gravity.
• Quantum gravity is like a startup that cannot ship a product after 70 years, and it's still taken over in theoretical physics as sort of The Prestige Theory field.

The application of quantum gravity 00:23

• Quantum gravity is not a precursor to technology, so far as we know.
• Quantum gravity was a replacement for something that used to be known as the unified field.
• Einstein wasn't chasing quantum gravity; he was chasing unified field theory that fell out of favor.
• Unified field theory becomes sort of like a joke old-timey expression for the future of physics, and we substituted quantum gravity for the merger of quantum theory, one field theory, quantum mechanics, and gravitational physics under general relativity.

The dominance of Edward Witten 01:40

• Edward Witten is the most dominant mind in physics at the moment.
• He effectively is Voldemort, the person whose name we are a little bit afraid to invoke and cause wrath.
• In 1984, Witten said, "Now, string theory is the way."
• This anomaly cancellation was unexpected and clearly points to the fact that we are about to quantize.

The mysterious Edward Witten 01:59

• Edward Witten has never made contact with the physical world.
• No Nobel Prize, never predicted something that turned out to be true, never pointed us to do an experiment that was invalidated.
• A hundred percent of his efforts have been not making contact with physical reality.
• He's one of the greatest conundrums.

Bondi's negative mass in general relativity 03:08

• At the 1957 conference at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Herman Bondi was thinking about negative mass in general relativity.
• If you have two masses in general, they always attract each other gravitationally.
• But what if somehow you had a different kind of mass that was negative just like you could have negative and positive charges?
• Oddly, the negative mass is still attracted just the same way to positive masses if there was no difference, but the positive mass is always repelled.
• Bondi started asking the question maybe we shouldn't what you think of is madness has meaning.

The failure of quantum gravity 04:38

• The 1957 conference was a confluence of the two families: the Witten's and the DeWitt's with Feynman, Wheeler, and all of these unbelievable characters in attendance.
• This pivotal strange experience that people are smoking the ganja on extending general relativity to places that it's never been extended, and the highbrow version of this doesn't work, and the lowbrow version of this doesn't work, so far as we know.
• The lowbrow version is called pseudoscientific anti-gravity, gravity shielding, electrogravitics, gravity dynamics.
• The highbrow version of this is called quantum gravity, and all the most respectable people are in it, and it just doesn't work.
• The dog doesn't hunt, and anybody who questions it is a crackpot.
• We have got to purge the physics community of its quackery, and the quackery is coming from the high Prestige version of this.
• The high Prestige version of anti-gravity is called quantum gravity, and it just doesn't work.
• They've crawled into the map prison built by Einstein, and they know that it's not right because there are these two singularities; there's this Singularity at the beginning of time which we call the big bang.

Theoretical Physics and Singularity 07:09

• The discussion is about the concept of singularity in theoretical physics.
• The current model used to describe singularity is the Friedman Robertson Walker space-time model.
• There is another singularity at the bottom of the black hole called the Schwarzgled Singularity.
• The fact that space-time kinks at these points indicates that there is something wrong with the equations used to describe them.
• Mathematicians and physicists know that there is some error that they don't understand.

The Need for a Successor Theory 07:41

• The existence of singularity in current theoretical models indicates that there is a need for a successor theory.
• Physicists and mathematicians are aware of this need and have been giving lectures about it.
• These lectures discuss theories like non-commutative geometry, but they are just ways of avoiding the fact that they haven't done the homework for 50 years.

Einstein's Model and Post-Einstein Theories 08:06

• Physicists and mathematicians are still living in Einstein's model.
• When someone says something is impossible, it is because they are thinking in terms of Einstein's concept of space-time.
• However, there is a need to think beyond Einstein's model to develop an effective theory.
• Thinking post-Einstein means thinking about recovering Einstein or developing an effective theory.

Miscellaneous 08:33

• The video ends with music and a foreign language.

Read also:

• Michio Kaku on Quantum Computing and AI Chat-bots (mindbrave.com)