A theory of everything?

posted by The Vidiot @ 10:57 AM Permalink

Taking some time off from my angst, I found an article about a surfer dude who may have beat string theory to the punch. A while ago, I went all agog over this E8 Lie structure. It's got 248 dimensions and somebody graphed it into a purdy drawing that I now have pasted up all over the place. (remember, I'm a geek)

Well, funny thing, this surfer dude guy looked at it, went "eureka!" and then came up with a very simple theory of everything.

He has high hopes that his new theory could provide what he says is a "radical new explanation" for the three decade old Standard Model, which weaves together three of the four fundamental forces of nature: the electromagnetic force; the strong force, which binds quarks together in atomic nuclei; and the weak force, which controls radioactive decay.

The reason for the excitement is that Lisi's model also takes account of gravity, a force that has only successfully been included by a rival and highly fashionable idea called string theory, one that proposes particles are made up of minute strings, which is highly complex and elegant but has lacked predictions by which to do experiments to see if it works.

Here is the link to his paper, if you dare. I have no idea if he's right or wrong, but I can recognize the brilliance. When I looked at the E8, I thought it was pretty important. I just didn't have a clue why.

Oh, I almost forgot, here's a youtube video explaining how the damn theory works.

Labels: physics