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Flavio Mercati completed his Ph.D. at the University of Rome `La Sapienza' in 2011 with a thesis on experimental tests of quantum gravity and on effective models of quantum gravity based on noncommutative field theory. He spent one year at the University of Zaragoza in Spain as a postdoctoral fellow, and another 7 months visiting the University of Nottingham in the UK. Since 2012 he has been a postdoctoral fellow at the Perimeter Institute in Ontario, Canada. Mercati has published around 30 scientific articles and three essays. In 2015 he won the Buchalter Prize for Cosmology for his research on the arrow of time. This work has received considerable attention by the media, leading to interviews by popular science journals like Wired, Scientific American, Le Scienze and Discovery News.
Shape Dynamics is a new theory of gravity based on fewer and arguably more fundamental principles than the general theory of relativity. It reproduces all of the hitherto confirmed predictions of Einstein's theory but is much more restrictive in the solutions that it allows. Besides being therefore a more strongly predictive theory, it also reveals new aspects of gravity that have the potential to transform our understanding of the Big Bang and black holes. Flavio Mercati has been actively involved with the recent exciting developments of Shape Dynamics. His monograph includes a valuable account of the historical background to the theory and its conceptual underpinnings. It is an excellent introduction suitable for readers of a wide range of abilities: from physics and mathematics undergraduates, to active gravitational and cosmological researchers. * Julian Barbour, author of The Discovery of Dynamics and The End of Time *
