Check your subscription status, update your details and more. Does Sabrina Pasterski’s holographic theory make her the next Einstein? Often described as a genius, physicist Sabrina Pasterski built and flew her own plane by the age of 16 and is now developing a mind-bending idea that could finally unify gravity and quantum theory It is a windy day in London when I meet physicist Sabrina Pasterski on the sidelines of a conference – which turns out to be a problem.
We had agreed to chat in a tent, but the canvas is flapping so loudly that we can barely hear each other. In the end, we retreat to a nearby church hall. But then again, maybe this ad-hoc venue is strangely fitting.
As a choir sings tunefully about heaven a few doors down, Pasterski tells me that her work is all about the celestial sphere – and has something in common with the Christian concept of the Holy Trinity, the idea that God is three persons in one. But given that she is often called “the next Einstein” in the press in reference to her fierce intellect, I am excited to try to wrap my mind around her work, regardless of the venue. It helps to start with the two key pillars of physics.
On the one hand, there is general relativity, Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity, the key ingredient of which is a smoothly curving fabric of space-time. On the other, quantum theory wonderfully explains the world of particles and envisages reality as not smooth at all, but instead coming in chunks with discrete amounts of energy. Suffice it to say that both are fundamentally incompatible.
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