So I found this article on New Scientist:

 

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19125645.800.html

 

Talking about spacetime braiding and a form of loop quantum gravity where the universe is just an enormous quantum computer. And well, obviously, the idea struck a chord with me. Here's their paper:

 

http://www.arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0603022

Thanks, bascule.

I am very glad to find that available free online!

In case you want more exposure to the "braid" way of building up matter out of space, there is a video of Sundance explaining his theory of matter at the blackboard (and with slides).

 

go here

http://streamer.perimeterinstitute.ca:81/mediasite/viewer/FrontEnd/Front.aspx?&shouldResize=False

 

click "seminar series"

 

then click in the box where it says "all presenters" and you get a list of all presenters of seminar talks alphabetical by first name

 

scroll down to Sundance

click on Sundance and then click "Search"

 

you will get his 16 November 2005 talk at Perimeter Institute called

"Topological preon models: a braid new world"

It is in split screen format, one part shows him talking and drawing pictures and gesturing. the other part of the screen shows the current slide in the projector.

this is a very good article, in New Scientist. It is by Davide Castelvecchi who is a web-editor working for the American Institute of Physics (you will have seen that). It is intelligent journalism IMO. If you want more info, another way to approach it is to look at this 9-page paper

http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0503213

I see that Castelvecchi cited it.

it is Sundance Bilson-Thompson's first paper on this idea and it is easier to understand that the one he wrote with Smolin and Markopoulou

 

It is a case where IMHO it's easier to understand when there is just one sole author who is trying to get across purely and simply one single insight.

 

And also when he is at the blackboard giving his talk, in the video, he is again focused on one simple idea for much of the time.

 

When he gets together with Smolin and Markopoulou then there are several ideas they are trying to put together and they are struggling to combine several things, and it is is not as clear.

 

at least to me.

I think something valuable is coming out of this sundance-smolin collaboration----with braids or knots getting into LQG spin networks in a way that matter appears in geometry. But the first paper was only this year. It is very new.

This seems pretty intriguing, it would be interesting to see how the theory develops over time, and what predictions it can make.