“In Einstein’s day, the strong and the weak forces had not yet been discovered, but he found the existence of even two distinct forces—gravity and electromagnetism—deeply troubling. Einstein did not accept that nature is founded on such an extravagant design. This launched his thirty-year voyage in search of the so-called unified field theory that he hoped would show that these two forces are really manifestations of one grand underlying principle. This quixotic quest isolated Einstein from the mainstream of physics, which, understandably, was far more excited about delving into the newly emerging framework of quantum mechanics. He wrote to a friend in the early 1940s, “I have become a lonely old chap who is mainly known because he doesn’t wear socks and who is exhibited as a curiosity on special occasions.” Einstein was simply ahead of his time. More than half a century later, his dream of a unified theory has become the Holy Grail of modern physics.” Excerpt From: Brian, Greene. “The Elegant Universe.”
Posted on: Fri, 20 Sep 2013 02:26:25 +0000
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