The Theory of Everything Starting with Albert Einstein, physicists have been racking their brains to discover if one theory can explain all physical phenomena. Some physicists have proposed Quantum Field Theory (QFT) and the elegant mathematics it embodies as theory of everything. However, it falls short, like many other theories, at explaining dark energy and dark matter, among other things. Others have proposed the Standard Model of particle physics as a theory of everything, because of its success in explaining a wide variety of experimental results. However, the Standard Model falls short of being a complete theory of fundamental interactions because it does not incorporate the full theory of gravitation Not long ago, Stephen Hawking, the worlds most famous living physicist/cosmologist proclaimed God superfluous now that we have M-theory (i.e., the highest-level string theory). Of course, mixing religion and science, while not new, is always contentious. Hawkings assertions helped propel his new book, The Grand Design, to the top of the bestseller list, but also brought a wrath of questions. The obvious one: Where did M-theory come from? Hawking, himself, asked a profound question in his first book, A Brief History of Time, Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing? M-theory, itself, has been criticized as poor science. The fundamental pillars it is based on (i.e., vibrating strings twenty orders of magnitude smaller than the radius of a proton) are not experimentally verifiable using todays science. It lacks uniqueness of predictions due to the large number of solutions, and we are unable to verify the full scope of its predictions (such as quantum gravity), again using todays science. Although, it is mathematically elegant, it may not represent reality. There are many theories in science. Most of the scientific community would likely hold that modern physics rests of two pillars, namely, 1) Einsteins theories of relativity, and 2) quantum mechanics. Unfortunately, general relativity and quantum mechanics are not compatible. They do not come together to give us a unified theory of everything. Where does this leave us? It appears the more we understand about the universe, the harder it becomes to develop a theory of everything. For the present, we have theories that work well at the macro level (i.e., the scale of our everyday world), like Einsteins theory of special relativity, and theories that work well at the quantum level (i.e., the level of atoms and subatomic particles), like quantum mechanics. Will we ever reach the holy grail of physics, a theory of everything? I think the short answer is yes, in the fullness of time. However, we may be talking decades, centuries, or even millenniums. No one really knows. Source: Original article based on the theories of quantum field theory, Standard Model, M-theory, special and general relativity, and quantum mechanics Image: Wikipedia Commons: Simulated Large Hadron Collider CMS particle detector data depicting a Higgs boson produced by colliding protons decaying into hadron jets and electrons, as predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics.. The Theory of Everything Starting with Albert Einstein, physicists have been racking their brains to discover if one theory can explain all physical phenomena. Some physicists have proposed Quantum Field Theory (QFT) and the elegant mathematics it embodies as theory of everything. However, it falls short, like many other theories, at explaining dark energy and dark matter, among other things. Others have proposed the Standard Model of particle physics as a theory of everything, because of its success in explaining a wide variety of experimental results. However, the Standard Model falls short of being a complete theory of fundamental interactions because it does not incorporate the full theory of gravitation Not long ago, Stephen Hawking, the worlds most famous living physicist/cosmologist proclaimed God superfluous now that we have M-theory (i.e., the highest-level string theory). Of course, mixing religion and science, while not new, is always contentious. Hawkings assertions helped propel his new book, The Grand Design, to the top of the bestseller list, but also brought a wrath of questions. The obvious one: Where did M-theory come from? Hawking, himself, asked a profound question in his first book, A Brief History of Time, Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing? M-theory, itself, has been criticized as poor science. The fundamental pillars it is based on (i.e., vibrating strings twenty orders of magnitude smaller than the radius of a proton) are not experimentally verifiable using todays science. It lacks uniqueness of predictions due to the large number of solutions, and we are unable to verify the full scope of its predictions (such as quantum gravity), again using todays science. Although, it is mathematically elegant, it may not represent reality. There are many theories in science. Most of the scientific community would likely hold that modern physics rests of two pillars, namely, 1) Einsteins theories of relativity, and 2) quantum mechanics. Unfortunately, general relativity and quantum mechanics are not compatible. They do not come together to give us a unified theory of everything. Where does this leave us? It appears the more we understand about the universe, the harder it becomes to develop a theory of everything. For the present, we have theories that work well at the macro level (i.e., the scale of our everyday world), like Einsteins theory of special relativity, and theories that work well at the quantum level (i.e., the level of atoms and subatomic particles), like quantum mechanics. Will we ever reach the holy grail of physics, a theory of everything? I think the short answer is yes, in the fullness of time. However, we may be talking decades, centuries, or even millenniums. No one really knows. Source: Original article based on the theories of quantum field theory, Standard Model, M-theory, special and general relativity, and quantum mechanics Image: Wikipedia Commons: Simulated Large Hadron Collider CMS particle detector data depicting a Higgs boson produced by colliding protons decaying into hadron jets and electrons, as predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics
Posted on: Tue, 15 Oct 2013 04:20:39 +0000
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