The Paracletes of Quantum Gravity

1. Background for Quantum Gravity The physics community is embroiled in a profound and far-reaching revolution, a revolution that will overturn the bedrock theories of matter, spacetime, and gravity on which almost all of the physical theories of the 20 century depend. This revolution is pressing and urgent and now is the time to choose up sides. At stake is no less than the theory of quantum gravity! However, since the revolution is now in at least its 55 year, it may be time to take stock and make some suggestions about what might be slowing it down, and about what strategic moves might advance the cause. In the 20century physicists developed two of the most successful descriptions of nature ever produced, general relativity and quantum mechanics. General relativity, Einstein’s theory of gravitation, rejects the notion of gravitational force and replaces it with a conception of gravitational interaction carried out by changes in the actual geometry of space and time, now spacetime; these changes in geometry reflect the distorting effect of matter and energy in spacetime. The story is complicated in its details, but simple in its conception: the presence of matter distorts the geometry of spacetime where the matter is located, and these changes are propagated at the speed of light throughout spacetime; on the other hand, matter not subject to outside forces travels on geodesics, the straightest paths in spacetime. This mutual interaction between spacetime and the matter-energy fields therein gives rise to