Nobel Laureate Gerard 't Hooft

If we want to understand how Gravity should be reconciled with Quantum Mechanics, it might be a wise idea to consider the strongest gravitational fields, or potentials, that are possible under certain conditions. Such fields, and in particular potential energies, occur in the immediate vicinity of black holes, and nowhere else. If we could tame the forces there, while taking the laws of quantum mechanics into account, we should be on our way to "quantise gravity". In the lecture, it is shown how to set up basic ingredients for a reasonable theory, and what surprises are waiting for us there. And, all that without String Theories, AdS/CFT and such. The combination of quantum effects with gravity is believed to be at the core of the most fundamental theories concerning matter, forces, and space-time at the most basic domains of the physical world, called the Planck scale, Do space and time still exist there? Or, if not, what does?