A New Theory of Everything? 511
goatherder writes "The Telegraph is running a story about a new Unified Theory of Physics. Garrett Lisi has presented a paper called "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything" which unifies the Standard Model with gravity — without using string theory. The trick was to use E8 geometry which you may remember from an earlier Slashdot article. Lisi's theory predicts 20 new particles which he hopes might turn up in the Large Hadron Collider."
New Scientist is a rag (Score:1, Interesting)
It's not a solution, per se (Score:4, Interesting)
It's more a very good argument for what he thinks the solution will looks like. The mathematics is low enough that I can (barely) understand it well enough to follow the general argument, but certainly not well enough to be able to catch any oversights. But it's the first thing I've seen in a long time that looked simple enough I felt like I could hit the books and maybe get to a point where I *could* understand it properly. (He says, as if he's really done the last three or four things like that he promised himself he would do. My head exploded reading the first volume of "Art of Computer Programming" and I haven't got in gear to finish *that* yet either.)
But it sure *looks* pretty.
Pug
Are you Lubos or something? (Score:3, Interesting)
Judging by the comments from others there, he certainly intelligent, but close minded, immature, and prone to lapses in judgment.
Re:Genius? (Score:3, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=E8_(mathematics)&oldid=171798022 [wikipedia.org]
mod parent up (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why aging occurs... (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not so much that old age was selected against, it's that old age was not selected for. Obviously, as an organism grows older, its likely survival decreases due to predators, accidents, etc. Thus, those humans who had the gene "good health at old age" were just as likely to reproduce as those humans who did not have such a genetic advantage.
This is easily demonstrated at the bottom of the food chain, where prey organisms have very short lifespans but reproduce in large quantities quickly.
As to stopping aging, humans spend tons of effort and money on that (cosmetics, medicine), but it's not as simple as one quick fix, and short of genetically engineering our progeny, there's not going to be an immortal human.
Further, many genes that deal with aging probably have negative consequences later in life. Simple example: When we're young and learning, rapid growth and pruning of our neural networks is beneficial, but such cellular behavior could be negative for functioning in society at a later age.
In all honesty, I don't want to live forever. I want to get old and die, and I'd much rather know the secrets of the universe than work for hundreds of years and never retire. I think most people would agree - we all just want to age more comfortably.
Re:GUT from a surfer dude! (Score:4, Interesting)
Biology has at least 1 famous 'Surfer Dude'; Kary Mullis. The guy was granted the Nobel prize for inventing PCR (polymerase chain reaction) which is arguably the most important processe in modern genetics or biotechnology. From what I know of the guy, he's a complete whack-job as well, claiming that hallucinogenic drugs led him to the discovery. He surfs frequently as well. Add in a few alien abduction stories and some other relatively crazy stuff and you get an idea of what he's like. Still, it's hard to argue with a Nobel prize winner.
5 years isn't bad (Score:5, Interesting)
Go Clifford Algebra (Score:5, Interesting)
I have read of ideas for unifying physics by using these notations for their superior ability to reason with space. (David Hestenes has good examples.) A good physical theory should be like a consistent programmer's interface. If the "code" continues to become unwieldly over time, then a point will be reached where rewrites must be done in order to eliminate special cases and bring out hidden symmetries.
This particular paper may end up failing important tests, but it does seem clear that at some point Clifford Algebras will end up being the thing that ended up simplifying physics.
The Microprocessor Analogy (Score:2, Interesting)
If E8 was a microprocessor, it would have 248 I/O pins. Lisi has discovered that if you put values for gravity into pins 1-12, you get electromagnitism results on pins 128-130. And if you put Strong Nuclear Force values into pints 64-76, then you get weak nuclear Force results from pins 192-204. If you put an electron into pin 36, you get a neutrino out of pin 189. Etc.
Because E8 seems to produce relationships between all of the fudamental forces (including gravity), Lisi is proposing that E8 must therefor be the key to describing and explaining all of the fundamental components of the universe.
If his ideas hold true (and thanks to the fact that they have testable predictions there's a way to know), E8 would be the starting point of describing anything in physics.
Re:Why aging occurs... (Score:3, Interesting)
I would agree, that if one did a robust accounting, it would be open to some discussion as to where physics falls with respect to biology. At least in the U.S. I would tend to argue both are in the tens of billions of dollars range.
But my point stands. Any TOE does *not* impact each and every one of us to the extent that aging and for most of us our eventual deaths does. So one can easily argue -- solve living first -- solve the other stuff later.
Re:An attempt at a summary (Score:5, Interesting)
-Garrett
(Yes, I'm the author of the paper. Hey look, my server's melting -- must of hit slashdot...)
Re:Pure Maths (Score:5, Interesting)
-Garrett
Re:An attempt at a summary (Score:5, Interesting)
You have no idea how your reply makes me feel, as I'm someone who stopped studying physics as a Freshman in college and can barely grasp the basic ideas behind the whole thing.
I admit I'm still a bit skeptical... I mean, if E8 is the answer, why did none of the other E8 approaches work? But you're doing some unique things in your approach and in them may lie the answer. Almost makes me wish I had stayed in physics, but the math is just beyond me.
Good luck!
Re:GUT from a surfer dude! (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not sure if they are indicative of the intellectual capacity of surfers, and since I was born and raised in Chicago, and have only lived and worked in large rust belt or northeastern cities, I don't have many surfers to use as a data set. For all I know, they may be the only two surfers who happen to also have slightly fried brains.
My wife is a former world-class skydiver, and although she's just finishing a PhD in Math (Fluid Dynamics), most of the other skydivers I've met have also not been intellectual powerhouses. Maybe in both cases it has more to do with the level at which you perform those activities, and the time they take up, or perhaps that most of them have military backgrounds. You're not going to be doing a lot of serious science if you spend most of your day hanging ten or chasing hodaddies or whatever it is surfers do when they're not laying on a board waiting for a wave to come, and you're not going to win any Nobel prizes if your spending all your time packing 'chutes and looking for a lift to 20k feet. The military also doesn't seem to encourage a lot of independent thought, which is a necessity for scientific genius. But it's true that a fit body can be very useful when engaged in any intellectual activity, which only gives me much more respect for a guy like ol' Stevie Hawking.
Video (Score:5, Interesting)
I found a cool video [youtube.com] that explains it all.
Well, personally I still don't understand a thing, but it looks cool anyways, and hey, what wouldn't one do for karma points!
Audio to his explanation (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:arxiv? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:might be on to something (Score:2, Interesting)
In the String theory you can pursue at least two types of problems:
1) you want to find some theories that can in fact reproduce known physics and particularly point out some undiscovered new physics, like new particles (or some astronomical observations), which is what this dude has supposedly done;
2) Generalize the theory as far as it can go, also in order to find perhaps some smaller set of principles that govern the whole wealth of the theory
As far as the TOE is concerned, there is of course also the possibility of some quite different theory that is TOE, like loop gravity, non-commutative geometry stuff, etc. but those don't have yet the popularity of the string theory.
Re:GUT from a surfer dude! (Score:2, Interesting)
Audio etc (Score:3, Interesting)