It has been sixty five years since Wheeler first published his seminal paper J. A. Wheeler, On the Nature of Quantum Geometrodynamics, Annals of Physics: 2, 604-614 (1957). In this talk, we look back on this work, particularly in view of what was learned in the 1970s and 1980s from Bekenstein and Hawking about black hole thermodynamics. We also explain why is is likely that Wheeler's quantum geometrodynamics in view of this black hole thermodynamics, is likely to assume a key role in any unified theory of general relativity and quantum mechanics. A photo of the whiteboard at the end of the talk is here: [ Ссылка ]
