Physicist-surfer dude comes up with new Theory of Everything

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ma...07/11/14/scisurf114.xml&CMP=ILC-mostviewedbox

Pretty cool, IMHO.

Shut the fuck up, Donnie.

And I'd still bet good money there are only about 20 people on the planet who really understand the bloody thing.

Pretty cool if it works out, though.

I am finding it difficult to reconcile this:

with this:

I know I have been outside of serious physics and hard science for almost 35 years now, but that first quote had me hoping that I would be able to grasp the new theory. The second one, however, appears to contradict it completely.

Can someone enlighten me on how the two of them can both be true?

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You could read the paper itself, and see if you understand it.
http://arxiv.org/abs/0711.0770 (pdf link in the upper-right corner).

It does say simple "by the standards of particle physics".

Which is like saying that a nuclear explosion will only give you a mild suntan "compared to the power of the average star".

Well, I skimmed through the paper, and compared to some of the other stuff I've seen, the math is a lot simpler, even though it's still beyond my scope. But I recognize that the matrices, the higher forms of algebra, and the calculus are a lot simpler than the stuff you see when you open a copy of 'Quantum Gravity' at the bookstore.

Interesting concept. We'll see if this becomes the next 're-write' on the book of reality. Good stuff, Maynard.

Think of an E8 like a mathematical appliance. We know what it does, and we can predict what will come out when we stick something in. We just didn't know all the parts.

Your powers are weak old man!!!



I don't have a clue either

Surfers are hippies and should be shot.

If i had enough money to fund an endless summer I would happily become a surfer, adrenaline junky quasi hippy!

There, the bold portion is a qualifier. Now, it should be fairly easy to understand how they can both be true.

I think you people as misunderstanding sync's question:

I wonder about that as well...?

You know, I wouldn't have expected this guy to unlock the mysteries of the universe. On the plus side, maybe we'll finally get that 'Bad boy Nobel Laureates' calendar we've been promised.

That will also have Richard Feynman playing the bongos, Einstein with his long hair, leather jacket & typical lack of socks, and...

...Hawking in a pimped out wheel chair? (Well, Hawking never got a prize, but it's a cool image...)

Apart from "simple mathematics" being relative, I guess the second paragraph refers to the dimensions of that E8 Lie-group (an abstract mathematical structure... which I don't really know anything about either), not those of space-time. Mathematical objects of higher dimensions are common in theoretical physics and don't necessarily imply a space-time with more than four of them. For example, in quantum mechanics, the state of a physical system is represented as a vector in a so called Hilbert space, which can even be (and generally is) infinite dimensional.

Oww... Brain. Hurts....

You said it yourself...

So... how does a theory based on something that is both an "eight-dimensional mathematical pattern with 248 points" and "a geometric object that is 57-dimensional and is itself is 248-dimensional" not require more than one dimension of time and three of space?

i'm not quite sure what the E8 does. anyone care to explain?

As someone else said, I think you should consider the E8 structure a mathematical appliance more than the verboten 'actual shape' of the universe.

Looks like more cruddy science journalism than a real breakthrough to me.

Looks like [-]more[/-] cruddy science journalism about a real breakthrough to me.

Me too. I'd rather enjoy life than spend the whole thing stressing out over work.

I'm sure this isn't the first time I've heard the " unheard-of physicist comes up with new ToE" story. In fact, wasn't there one just a couple of years ago?

The great thing about this one, though, is if he genuinely has concrete testable predications. I'll give him great kudos for that. That's pretty damn rare.

Does his theory work out to forty two?

Surfer's new Theory of Everything severely deficient

Shocking...