Quantum gravity from general relativity

Abstract

Although general relativity is a predictively successful theory, it treats matter as classical rather than as quantum. For this reason, it will have to be replaced by a more fundamental quantum theory of gravity. Attempts to formulate a quantum theory of gravity suggest that such a theory may have radical consequences for the nature, and indeed the fate, of spacetime. The present article articulates what this problem of spacetime is and traces it through three approaches to quantum gravity taking general relativity as their vantage point: semi-classical gravity, causal set theory, and loop quantum gravity.