# Space-Time May Have a Grain We Cannot Yet Explain by Martin Rees > “There is plainly unfinished business in cosmology. Einstein’s theory treats space and time as smooth and continuous. We know, however, that no material can be chopped into arbitrarily small pieces: eventually, you get down to discrete atoms. Likewise, space itself has a grainy and quantised structure—but on a scale a trillion trillion times smaller. We lack a unified understanding of the bedrock of the physical world.” > **— Martin Rees**, *2014: What Scientific Idea Is Ready for Retirement?, Edge, 2014* ## Sources and Context - **Direct publication and full context:** [2014: What Scientific Idea Is Ready for Retirement?](https://www.edge.org/response-detail/25519) — The linked publication contains the quoted passage and its surrounding argument. - **Master research record:** [[research/Martin Rees on Machine Succession, Post-Human Intelligence, and the Cosmic Future|Martin Rees on Machine Succession, Post-Human Intelligence, and the Cosmic Future]] — preserves this object inside the open Martin Rees source dossier. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Simple Reminders|Simple Reminders]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - **Article:** [[articles/We Were Never Going to Make It|We Were Never Going to Make It]] - **Article:** [[articles/The Ramanujan Mathematical Universe|The Ramanujan Mathematical Universe]] - **Article:** [[articles/Project Hail Mary and Other Intelligences|Project Hail Mary and Other Intelligences]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Cosmology|Cosmology]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Cosmology|Cosmology]] - [[wiki/Big Bang|Big Bang]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “There is plainly unfinished business in cosmology. Einstein’s theory treats space and time as smooth and continuous. We know, however, that no material can be chopped into arbitrarily small pieces: eventually, you get down to discrete atoms. Likewise, space itself has a grainy and quantised structure—but on a scale a trillion trillion times smaller. We lack a unified understanding of the bedrock of the physical world.” — Martin Rees, 2014: What Scientific Idea Is Ready for Retirement?, Edge, 2014 https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-martin-rees-space-time-have-grain-we ```