FACTOID #151: The five countries with the highest coffee consumption are also the five countries whose citizens trust one another the most. Coincidence? Probably.
Abhay Ashtekar (born July 5, 1949) completed his undergraduate education in India. He studied under Robert Geroch in the University of Chicago, receiving his Ph.D. in 1974. Jump to: navigation, search July 5 is the 186th day of the year (187th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 179 days remaining. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1949 is a common year starting on Saturday. ...
He is the Eberly Professor of Physics and the Director of the Institute for Gravitational Physics and Geometry at the Pennsylvania State University. As the creator of Ashtekar variables, he is one of the founders of loop quantum gravity. He has also written a number of descriptions of loop quantum gravity that are accessible to non-physicists. These may be found on the Semi-Popular Articles page of his website below. Jump to: navigation, search The Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (commonly known as Penn State) is a state-related land-grant university in Pennsylvania, with over 80,000 students at 24 campuses throughout the state. ... In theoretical physics, Ashtekar (new) variables (named after Abhay Ashtekar who invented them) represent an unusual way to rewrite the metric on the three-dimensional spatial slices in terms of a SU(2) gauge field and its complementary variable. ... Loop quantum gravity (LQG), also known as loop gravity, quantum geometry and canonical quantum general relativity, is a proposed quantum theory of spacetime which attempts to blend together the seemingly incompatible theories of quantum mechanics and general relativity. ...
In 1986 physicist AbhayAshtekar reformulated Einstein's field equations of general relativity using what have come to be known as Ashtekar variables, a particular flavor of Einstein-Cartan theory with a complex connection.
In the Ashtekar formulation, the fundamental objects are a rule for parallel transport (technically, a connection) and a coordinate frame (called a vierbein) at each point.
Because the Ashtekar formulation was background-independent, it was possible to use Wilson loops as the basis for a nonperturbative quantization of gravity.
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. -- Dr. AbhayAshtekar, the leader of a worldwide effort to unify the two most profound, abstract and mathematically baroque theories of physics discovered in this century, is sprinkling frozen mango cubes on scoops of vanilla ice cream.
The equations that resulted were later shown to predict the polymers by Dr. Ashtekar, Dr. Carlo Rovelli of the Center for Theoretical Physics at the University of Marseilles in France and Dr. Lee Smolin of Pennsylvania State University.
Ashtekar freely points out that no one yet knows if this conception is right and that nature has actually chosen to fricassee space at the smallest scales.
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