Abstract
Matvei Bronstein's 1935 work on quantum gravity, the first in-depth study of the problem, is analyzed in the context of the history of physics and the scientist's career. Bronstein's analysis of field measurability revealed "an essential difference between quantum electrodynamics and the quantum theory of the gravitational field" and showed that general relativity and quantum theory are fundamentally difficult to unify. Featured in the story are Planck, Einstein, Heisenberg, Pauli, Rosenfeld, Landau, and Bohr. The methodological uniqueness of the quantum gravity problem is discussed.