We don't yet understand how gravity and quantum mechanics fit together, and they can sometimes appear to be incompatible. Unifying them is one of the holy grails of modern physics.
There are some settings where we are beginning to understand how gravity and quantum mechanics fit together. The most famous of these is known as the AdS/CFT correspondence. Here, a special kind of gravitational spacetime (Anti-de Sitter space or AdS) and a specific kind of quantum field theory (conformal field theory or CFT) are able to describe the same physics – even though the spacetime has one more dimension than the field theory, as if it were a 3D hologram of a 2D surface.
It turns out that entanglement is one of the ingredients that makes this correspondence work. In this 4-minute clip, Alex May, Murray Gell-Mann Chair in Theoretical Physics at Perimeter Institute, explains how tools from quantum cryptography help reveal some of these deep connections between gravity and entanglement.
About PI
Perimeter Institute is the world’s largest research hub devoted to theoretical physics. The independent Institute was founded in 1999 to foster breakthroughs in the fundamental understanding of our universe, from the smallest particles to the entire cosmos. Research at Perimeter is motivated by the understanding that fundamental science advances human knowledge and catalyzes innovation, and that today’s theoretical physics is tomorrow’s technology. Located in the Region of Waterloo, the not-for-profit Institute is a unique public-private endeavour, including the Governments of Ontario and Canada, that enables cutting-edge research, trains the next generation of scientific pioneers, and shares the power of physics through award-winning educational outreach and public engagement.
