Chapter 7: Further developments: Spin foams

We have discussed some of the difficulties encountered in handling Thiemann’s quantum version of the Einstein equations. This has led to the development of an alternative approach to the dynamics of the theory, known as spin foams. Many of the results in this area are highly technical and cannot be well covered in a book for the general public, here we will just give a general idea of what is being attempted. There is a technical book on the subject by Rovelli and Vidotto…