28 February 2026

Bridging the Gap

My TEDx talk was about why General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics don’t get along—and a few of the ideas trying to fix that.

Tom presenting his TEDx talk on stage
Presenting the talk
Tom taking part in the TEDx speaker photoshoot
The speaker photoshoot

What I talked about

Why our two best theories don’t agree

General Relativity explains very large things and Quantum Mechanics explains very small things. Both work extremely well, but they disagree in places where we need both of them.

I talked about gravity and the different ways it is explained acrossd the two theories. I finished on some ideas that might solve the problem, including String Theory and the idea of a “Theory of Everything”.

Giving the talk was amazing. I learned a lot while researching it, on top of my existing knowledge and had great fun on the day. There were eight youth speakers and four older speakers, all talking about “Bridges” in completely different ways, one literally.

Videos

Twelve minutes too long?

There’s a 60-second version too.

60-second highlight

The very short version.

Full talk

All twelve minutes.