French mathematician Alain Connes has been working for a number of years to reconcile general relativity with quantum mechanics using noncommutative geometry. Fractality also arises in this approach to quantum gravity. An article by Alexander Hellemans in the August 2006 issue of Scientific American quotes Connes as saying that the next important step toward this goal is to "try to understand how space with fractional dimensions couples with gravitation." The work of Connes and physicist Carlo Rovelli suggests that time is an emergent property or arises naturally in this formulation, whereas in causal dynamical triangulation choosing those configurations where adjacent building blocks share the same direction in time is an essential part of the "recipe." Both approaches suggest that the fabric of space itself is fractal, however.