Steve Carlip - From discrete causal sets to a spacetime continuum

Causal set theory offers an interesting discrete model for spacetime, in which the causal structure is fundamental. But while we know how to approximate a spacetime manifold by a causal set, the vast majority of causal sets are not at all continuum-like. I will talk about progress in showing that large classes of these “bad” sets are very strongly suppressed in the gravitational path integral, perhaps allowing us to recover the observed continuum structure of spacetime from the quantum theory of discrete structures.