Here is the way I would try to explain Loop Quantum Gravity to my grand mother. Loop Quantum Gravity is a quantum theory. It has a Hilbert space, observables and transition amplitudes. All these are well defined. Like all quantum theories, it has a classical limit. The conjecture (not proven, but for which there are many elements of evidence), is that the classical limit is standard General Relativity. Therefore the "low energy effective action" is just that of General Relativity.
The main idea of the theory is to build the quantum theory, namely the Hilbert space, operators and transition amplitudes, without expanding the fields around a reference metric (Minkowski or else), but keeping the operator associated to the metric itself. The concrete steps to write the theory are just writing the Hilbert space, the operators and the expression for the transition amplitudes. This takes only a page of math.
The result of the theory are of three kind. First, the operators that describe geometry are well defined and their spectrum can be computed. As always in quantum theory, this can be used to predict the "quantization", namely the discreteness, of certain quantities. The calculation can be done, and area and volume are discrete. therefore the theory predicts a granular space. This is just a straightforward consequence of quantum theory and the kinematics of GR.
Second, it is easy to see that in the transition amplitudes there are never ultraviolet divergences, and this is pretty good.
Then there are more "concrete" results. Two main ones: the application to cosmology, that "predicts" that there was big bang, but only a bounce: And the Black Hole entropy calculation, which is nice, but not entirely satisfactory yet.
Does this describe nature? We do not know...
carlo rovelli
This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-04-01 16:50 (UCT), posted by SE-user Carlo Rovelli