Gravity and gravitons

[Single Serving Jack]

New member here, may as well dive in with an new thread and a question!

I've just read an article in the New Scientist magazine about detecting gravitons. Here is the link, it's a subscriber only article I'm afraid:

http://www.newscientistspace.com/art...gravitons.html

The basic idea in the article is that the force of gravity is transmitted by particles (as stated by quantum theory) called gravitons, but they are so unlikely to actually interact with other matter (as the gravitational force is so weak compared to other forces) they are practically impossible to ever detect.

My question (most likely pretty basic but what the hell) is that I thought gravity was a manifestation of the curvature of space-time made by the mass of bodies, and in effect a moon orbiting a planet, or an apple falling to the ground was simply following a straight line in space-time. Clearly I need a bit of direction here as I'm not seeing the link between that and gravitons. This is all something to do with relativity and quantum theory, right? Or maybe not.


Here's the paper that the article is actually about: www.arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0601043