How studying black hole theory may help us to quantise gravity

Abstract

Black holes are more than just odd-looking curiosities in gravity theory. They uniquely intertwine the basic principles of General Relativity with those of Quantum Theory. Just by demanding that they nevertheless obey acceptable laws of dynamics, just like stars and planets, we hit upon strange structures that must play key roles in the quantum effects that we expect in the gravitational force at ultrashort distance scales. It is explained why, in our approach to address the problem of information conservation, the usual expression for the temperature of Hawking's radiation is off by a factor 2.