[Disclaimer up front: I'm a string theorist, so add grains of salt appropriately.]
First impression: this article's title (and some of the phrasing within the article) feels a little misleading to me. In the conversations I've seen or had with Loop Quantum Gravity people, I've almost never seen it presented as a "Theory of Everything". My impression has been that most LQG folks were proud that their work was purely focused on quantum gravity, without the added mess of trying to solve everything in one fell swoop.
Second impression: In my experience, most string theorists (certainly not all) have had no particular animosity toward LQG. It's another theory, it's not the one we're personally excited about, but more power to them. Maybe the two will meet in the middle someday, maybe not. In all my years of spending time with string theorists, I only saw a few cases of outright animosity, and LQG talks were greeted with respect but skepticism by most. So I always feel weird about articles that frame this as some sort of knock-down fight. If there's finally some hint of common ground, all the better: more tools for everybody!
I'm in string theory as well, most of my knowledge about LQG is mostly from other string theorists. From my experience, string theorists can be extremely hostile towards the ideas in LQG and the people involved in it. So I would not quite share your view.
Then from LQG there is for example this [0], which portrays string theorists as a bit naive and ignorant.
I know that LQG is not purely focused on quantum gravity, there are some papers out there that discuss how to combine Yang-Mills theories to LQG, and it is suppose to be "easy" (see discussion around page 15 of [0] for example). But, as you might mean when you say that they are purely focused on QG, is that it is (or seems to be (to my very limited understanding of LQG)) to some degree considered a solved problem.
Luboš is rather outwardly critical of loop quantum gravity, and since his blog is widely read, I imagine that's where most people get the idea that a lot of animosity exists between the two groups.
Armchair physicist here... just relying on an undergraduate physics degree, so please correct any naïve misconceptions, but:
Isn't resolving quantum theory with gravity the only remaining hurdle to a theory of everything? Other than unifying the standard model with general relativity, what else is left?
[+] [-] Steuard|10 years ago|reply
First impression: this article's title (and some of the phrasing within the article) feels a little misleading to me. In the conversations I've seen or had with Loop Quantum Gravity people, I've almost never seen it presented as a "Theory of Everything". My impression has been that most LQG folks were proud that their work was purely focused on quantum gravity, without the added mess of trying to solve everything in one fell swoop.
Second impression: In my experience, most string theorists (certainly not all) have had no particular animosity toward LQG. It's another theory, it's not the one we're personally excited about, but more power to them. Maybe the two will meet in the middle someday, maybe not. In all my years of spending time with string theorists, I only saw a few cases of outright animosity, and LQG talks were greeted with respect but skepticism by most. So I always feel weird about articles that frame this as some sort of knock-down fight. If there's finally some hint of common ground, all the better: more tools for everybody!
[+] [-] rotorblade|10 years ago|reply
Then from LQG there is for example this [0], which portrays string theorists as a bit naive and ignorant.
I know that LQG is not purely focused on quantum gravity, there are some papers out there that discuss how to combine Yang-Mills theories to LQG, and it is suppose to be "easy" (see discussion around page 15 of [0] for example). But, as you might mean when you say that they are purely focused on QG, is that it is (or seems to be (to my very limited understanding of LQG)) to some degree considered a solved problem.
[0] http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0310077
[+] [-] Xcelerate|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dang|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maaku|10 years ago|reply
Isn't resolving quantum theory with gravity the only remaining hurdle to a theory of everything? Other than unifying the standard model with general relativity, what else is left?
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] bsharitt|10 years ago|reply