Kay Lehnert @cosmologer.bsky.social · 09/05/2026Where are the magnetic monopoles? String theory predicts that a working theory of quantum gravity has particles of all possible charges, including magnetic ones. This is what the 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 demands. We don’t know any rules that would forbid such a magnetic monopole. But where are they? 050
Kay Lehnert @cosmologer.bsky.social · 19/04/2026String theory tells us that time can have a beginning (and an end). The big bang is therefore perfectly compatible with quantum gravity. This insight come purely from mathematical considerations: The cobordism group of quantum gravity contains the empty set—the nothingness. 210
Kay Lehnert @cosmologer.bsky.social · 15/04/2026(Mathematical) Spaces can have different geometries: they can be flat or curved: 🟩 Flat spaces are called Minkowski spaces. When they are curved, they can curve inwards, like a ball, or outwards, like a Pringles crisp. 🎾 Balls are de Sitter spaces. 💫 Pringles are anti–de Sitter spaces. 100
Kay Lehnert @cosmologer.bsky.social · 04/04/2026I often hear the claim that #StringTheory is bad because it offers so many (10^500) solutions, yet no one mentions that classical physics offers an infinite number of solutions for the same questions. 10^500 is a lot less than infinity. 110
Kay Lehnert @cosmologer.bsky.social · 31/03/2026There are more than 3000 papers on the string-theoretical swampland programme. I read and condensed them into the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Swampland: The Cosmologist's Handbook to the String-Theoretical Swampland Programme. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... 010