The enduring appeal of pondering quantum gravity dilemmas

I rarely write much about it in my research papers, but all the science I have done so far assumes the accuracy of the theory of general relativity, that is, our most basic theory to explain gravity, or it is a great approximation of a more correct theory. When me and others in my field write up our research, we rarely say it out loud. But the general theory of relativity lurks everywhere in physics – from the way we can navigate in a global positioning system to the way it helps us launch…