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Columnist and Physics

Why I still love reckoning with the quantum gravity problem

General relativity is an astonishingly beautiful theory, and grappling with why it disagrees with quantum mechanics is a joy, says Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

By Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

16 April 2025

2G4A579 3D visualization of gravity distorsion, physical objects in orbit, space, general theory of relativity, law of universal gravitation, scientific

“General relativity lurks everywhere in physics…”

MikeCS images/Alamy

I rarely write much about it in my research papers, but every piece of science I have ever done either assumes the correctness of general relativity – our most fundamental theory for explaining gravity – or assumes it is a fantastic approximation of a more correct theory. When I and others in my field write up our research, we rarely say it out loud. But general relativity lurks everywhere in physics – from the way it allows us to navigate with the global positioning system to how it helps us launch…

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