John Baez

4 lectures at Graphs and Patterns in Mathematics and Theoretical Physics,
a conference in honor of Dennis Sullivan's 60th birthday.

June 14-21, 2001

Riemannian Quantum Geometry and Gauge Theory

This is an introduction to loop quantum gravity and its associated mathematics - for example, gauge theory on a graph. It's aimed at mathematicians who may not know much about quantization.

Click on these to see the slides as PDF files:

• Table of Contents

• Lecture 1: Why is (Canonical) Quantum Gravity Hard?

• Lecture 2: Gauge Theory on a Graph

• Lecture 3: Einstein's Equations: The New Variables

• Lecture 4: Spin Foam Models

Thanks go to Derek Wise for scanning in these slides.

Abhay Ashtekar gave a companion talk at the same conference:

• Quantum Geometry in Action: Big Bang and Black Holes by Abhay Ashtekar

For more try these papers:

• Loop Quantum Gravity by Carlo Rovelli
• Introduction to Modern Canonical Quantum General Relativity by Thomas Thiemann
• Spin Networks in Nonperturbative Quantum Gravity by John Baez
• An Introduction to Spin Foam Models of BF Theory and Quantum Gravity by John Baez

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