I figured I'd start this forum off with something about the 2 stringy theories of quantum gravity. Both loop quantum gravity and string theory propose that everything is made of 1 dimensional loops, or strings. Both are quantum theories, not classic. This means that strings are not moving around space like an every day object, but instead must be defined in terms of a quantum field. So both LQG and string theory are field theories. It has been said that when LQG is compared to SFT, the 2 theories are very similar. But there is an important different, because while string field theory is dependent on a background of spacetime, the field itself in LQG defines spacetime. The purpose of this thread is to clarify what exactly this background dependence means. Any takers?