{"id":394182,"date":"2010-03-05T18:30:40","date_gmt":"2010-03-05T23:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/davidkirkpatrick.wordpress.com\/?p=6959"},"modified":"2010-03-05T18:30:40","modified_gmt":"2010-03-05T23:30:40","slug":"multiple-choice-theories-of-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/394182","title":{"rendered":"Multiple choice theories of everything"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in January I blogged about “the most beautiful structure in mathematics<\/a>,” the basis of a physics theory-of-everything proposed by Garrett Lisi,\u00a0That theory is part of an article on “Knowing the mind of God<\/a>” at NewScientist outlining seven different theories of everything.<\/p>\n

From the last link, more on Lisi’s concept”<\/p>\n

\n

E8<\/h3>\n

In 2007 the physicist (and sometime surfer) Garrett Lisi made headlines with a\u00a0possible theory of everything<\/a>\"Movie.<\/p>\n

The fuss was triggered by a\u00a0paper<\/a> discussing E8, a complex eight-dimensional mathematical pattern with 248 points. Lisi showed that the various fundamental particles and forces known to physics could be placed on the points of the E8 pattern, and that many of their interactions then emerged naturally.<\/p>\n

Some physicists\u00a0heavily criticised the paper<\/a>, while others gave it a\u00a0cautious welcome<\/a>. In late 2008, Lisi was\u00a0given a grant<\/a> to continue his studies of E8.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And here’s the article’s synopsis of string theory, one of the better known ideas out there:<\/p>\n

\n

String theory<\/h3>\n

This is probably the best known theory of everything, and the most\u00a0heavily studied<\/a>. It suggests that the fundamental particles we observe are not actually particles at all, but\u00a0tiny strings<\/a> that only “look” like particles to scientific instruments because they are so small.<\/p>\n

What’s more, the mathematics of string theory also rely on\u00a0extra spatial dimensions<\/a>, which humans could not experience directly.<\/p>\n

These are radical suggestions, but many theorists find the string approach elegant and have proposed numerous variations on the basic theme that seem to solve assorted cosmological conundrums. However, they have two major challenges to overcome if they are to persuade the rest of the scientific community that string theory is the best candidate for a ToE.<\/p>\n

First, string theorists have so far struggled to make\u00a0new predictions that can be tested<\/a>. So string theory remains just that: a theory.<\/p>\n

Secondly, there are just too many variants of the theory, any one of which could be correct \u2013 and little to choose between them. To resolve this, some physicists have proposed a more general framework called\u00a0M-theory<\/a>, which unifies many string theories.<\/p>\n

But this has its own problems. Depending how you set it up, M-theory can describe any of\u00a010500<\/sup> universes<\/a>. Some physicists argue that this is evidence that there are\u00a0multiple universes<\/a>, but others think it just means the theory is untestable.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in January I blogged about “the most beautiful structure in mathematics,” the basis of a physics theory-of-everything proposed by Garrett Lisi,\u00a0That theory is part of an article on “Knowing the mind of God” at NewScientist outlining seven different theories of everything. From the last link, more on Lisi’s concept” E8 In 2007 the physicist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4050,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-394182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4050"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394182\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}