MG11 will be in Berlin: 23-29 July 2006

[marcus]

Every 3 years (since 1975) there is a Marcel Grossmann meeting on Gen Rel

http://www.icra.it/MG/Welcome.htm

in 2003 the tenth Marcel Grossmann meeting (MG10) was in Rio. except in one of the parallel sessions, there was almost no Loop QG presence, or other non-string QG. the organization apparently reflected conservative and traditional views of the program committee
http://www.cbpf.br/mg10/WelcomeNew.html

in 2006 the MG11 meeting will be at the Free University of Berlin 23-29 July.
http://www.icra.it/MG/mg11/
the program is still being worked out. tentatively there will be a parallel session on QG ("the quantum and gravity") at which Jerzy Lewandowski will talk

to see a rough draft of the parallel sessions, click on "program" in the left margin menu bar (I couldn't find anything describing the planned plenary sessions)

Here's a sample:

QG1 Quantum Gravity Phenomenology
Giovanni Amelino–Camelia
QG2 Quantum Fields
Volodia Belinski
QG3 New developments and the time issue in quantum gravity
---
QG4 Casimir effect and short-range gravity
---
QG5 Loop quantum gravity, quantum geometry, spin foams
Jerzy Lewandowski
QG6 Quantum cosmology and quantum effects in the early Universe
Paulo Moniz

BTW the original plan was to have MG11 in Saint Petersburg Russia, but practical problems arose and the venue was changed---I would guess rather recently

 

[marcus]

for comparison here is the QG parallel session of MG10, the 2003 Rio meeting


QG1 Quantum Gravity Phenomenology
Giovanni Amelino–Camelia
QG2 Quantum Fields
Volodia Belinski
QG3 New developments and the time issue in quantum gravity
Jerzy Kowalski-Glikman
QG4 Casimir effect and short-range gravity
Vladimir Mostepanenko
QG5 Loop quantum gravity, quantum geometry, spin foams
Robert Oeckl
QG6 Quantum cosmology and quantum effects in the early Universe
Paulo Moniz
QG7 Fundamental Issues in Quantum Theory
Paulo Moniz

to a first approximation there is not much difference
Jerzy Lewandowski is somewhat better known than Robert Oeckl, but the situation remains comparable

in one of their announcements the Berlin organizers say they have taken over the MG10 program and are using it as a pattern----this is understandable if they only recently began planning due to uncertainty about the venue.

Speaking of traditionalism have a look at the International Organizing committee for MG11:

Blair D.
Choquet-Bruhat Y.,
Christodoulou D.,
Damour T.,
Ehlers J.,
Everitt F.,
Fang L.Z.,
Hawking S.,
Kleinert H.,
Ne’eman Y.,
Ruffini R. ,
Sato H.,
Sunyaev R.,
Weinberg S.

 

[Careful]

Looks nice. You should know Marcus that the Marcel Grossmann meeting is for gravitation and cosmology only and has traditionally been organized by classical relativists (for obvious reasons). Now, most of these people do not think very highly of quantum gravity (to say the least , many of them still hold the view that QM - as a theory - is just garbage). Therefore, there is no compelling need at all to have a quantum gravity session here (do you see classical relativity presented at QG conferences?). There are few enough prestigious relativity meetings left and it seems to me one should maintain them in all glory given the fact there is still an abundance of interesting problems left in GR.

Cheers,

Careful

 

[jarek]

...given the fact there is still an abundance of interesting problems left in GR

Would you care to briefly list them? I haven't had a live contact with GR for some years now and wanted to learn whazzup.
best,
jarek

 

[Careful]

Hi Jarek,

Some problems which immediatly spring to my mind (I do not know how much progress has been made on them recently/about some solutions I might just be ignorant)
(a) initial value problems (for example: necessary and sufficient conditions to get an asymptotically flat spacetime)
(b) full stability study of black holes (beyond weak field perturbations, i.e. gravitational waves) or naked singularities
(c) understand the physical role of the magnetic part of the Weyl tensor
(d) covariant scaling procedures in cosmology
(e) covariant perturbation theory and the influence of non linearities on long timescales (recent results have shown that these nonlinearities drastically change the post Newtonian approximation - see Cooperstock).
This is very important for cosmology...

Anyway, it seems that the proper understanding of the nonlinear aspects of gravitation will still require lots of work (and they are actually crucial). Actually, these are mostly very old open problems : another cute one is the perfect fluid conjecture of Ellis, which says that a relativistic perfect fluid with an equation of state is either irrotational or non expanding (contrary to Newtonian fluids ).

Cheers,

Careful

 

[Kea]

Wish I could go. They have many parallel sessions planned besides QG, including Strings possibly. I believe the 11th Marcel Grossmann Award will be going to Roy Kerr (of a certain Kiwi institution).

 

[Careful]

Wish I could go. They have many parallel sessions planned besides QG, including Strings possibly. I believe the 11th Marcel Grossmann Award will be going to Roy Kerr (of a certain Kiwi institution).

Ah someone from close to home (at least for you ), that is always nice. How old is Kerr now ?

 

[Kea]

How old is Kerr now?

71. There was a Kerrfest last year.

 

[Careful]

71. There was a Kerrfest last year.

Someone who discovered the maximal class of stationary PHYSICAL black holes in the correct number of dimensions is certainly entitled to such a party.

Cheers,

Careful

 

[Careful]

Eh, Kea what was this link about ??

 

[Kea]

Eh, Kea what was this link about ??

Oh, never mind. It was for the Strings 06 website, which is in Chinese, which I don't read. If you click on the RED character it takes you back to the previous page, but it won't work here because PF opens a new browser window. I thought it was cute. Not much info about Strings 06, however.

http://strings06.itp.ac.cn/



P.S. Happy New Year Everybody. I thought I'd get in early, since I'm entitled to be first anyway!

 

[Careful]

Oh, never mind. It was for the Strings 06 website, which is in Chinese, which I don't read. If you click on the RED character it takes you back to the previous page, but it won't work here because PF opens a new browser window. I thought it was cute. Not much info about Strings 06, however.
http://strings06.itp.ac.cn/

P.S. Happy New Year Everybody. I thought I'd get in early, since I'm entitled to be first anyway!

Well, I figured that out too, but I do not attach the sentiment ``cute´´ to it

Good, Happy new year too.

 

[marcus]

Loops '06 seems to be submerged in Berlin MG11

http://www.maths.qmul.ac.uk/hyperspace/conference/06Jan.5.html

Jerzy Lewandowski, longtime co-author with Abhay Ashtekar and a leader in the QG community has circulated this notice:

*******************
Loops2006 < Marcel Grossmann 11 < Berlin - July 23-29

Dear Quantum GR Community,

We are going to have our
"Loop quantum gravity, quantum geometry, spin foam'' Session
as one of SIX "The Quantum and Gravity'' sessions of Eleventh Marcel
Grossmann Meeting in Berlin, July 23-29, 2006. Exact deadlines are not
known at this point, but I am inviting talk proposals: titles and
abstracts.
Please indicate in the subject:
"MG11, abstract submission''
You are also welcome to visit the conference homepage:
http://www.icra.it/MG/mg11/welcome.htm

See you in Berlin.
Cheers
Jerzy
*****************

This happened before, in 2003. That year there was no separate Loops conference but rather there was this LQG spinfoam SESSION in the MG10 conference at Rio.

The QG inclusion in MG10 had the same name
"QG5 Loop quantum gravity, quantum geometry, spin foams"

There is a certain logic to this. The Marcel Grossmann conference only happens every 3 years. It includes LQG and spinfoam QG papers in a parallel session.
Why not make that be the Loops conference for that year, whether 2003 or 2006 or 2009?

In recent years when there was NOT a Marcel Grossmann conference, we have seen a Loops 04 conference (in May at Marseille) and a Loops 05 conference (in October at Golm). But when there was an MG conference, then there was no big international QG conference in that year.

To me this does not seem quite right---it would be a little disappointing if all there was by way of a QG conference in 2006 were this parallel session in July at Berlin.

here is a link to where conferences are announced:
http://www.maths.qmul.ac.uk/hyperspace/conference/

 

[marcus]

On Feb 1 they put up the MG11 website
http://www.icra.it/MG/mg11/

several of the pages are still "under construction" and there is not actually much there now except the bare framework, but there is a
Parallel Sessions page.

One of the Parallel Sessions is "The Quantum and Gravity"
and Jerzy Lewandowski has charge of one section of that
**G4 Loop Quantum Gravity, Quantum Geometry, Spin Foams
Jerzy Lewandowski**

there is also a "Quantum Gravity Phenomenology" section run by Amelino-Camelia (well-known in connection with DSR)