A Beginner's Guide to Quantum Gravity

More than a century has passed since Einstein first pointed out the need to quantize general relativity. Since then, the search for quantum gravity has taught us a great deal about quantum field theory, general relativity, classical mechanics, and mathematics. It has not, however, yet led to a complete, convincing quantum theory of gravity. In this talk, I will briefly describe the (likely) necessity of quantum gravity and some of the conceptual issues that make this such a hard problem. I will then summarize a few of the main research programs and potential "windows" into quantum gravity, and sketch out a bit of recent progress in the search.