Slashdot Mirror
A New Theory of Everything?
goatherder writes "The Telegraph is running a story about a new Unified Theory of Physics. Garrett Lisi has presented a paper called "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything" which unifies the Standard Model with gravity — without using string theory. The trick was to use E8 geometry which you may remember from an earlier Slashdot article. Lisi's theory predicts 20 new particles which he hopes might turn up in the Large Hadron Collider."
The fact that he's a surfer dude deserves some mention as well - not everyday you see hard core mathematical physics coming from the beach!
Lubos Motl thinks it's pure bullshit ... so Lisi might
well be on to something :)
that the earth is going to get demolished any minute now.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
I smell an XKCD comic approaching....
I don't know about string theory but there is no way he pulled it off without rope theory.
I think some people have an entirely different definition of 'Simple' than myself.
then...
Well, am I alone in thinking that invoking another 244 dimensions is rather excessive?
Especially when an extension of spinor theory to only 6 dimensions (3 time, 3 space) looks to provide a more elegant explanation?
Sorry, surfer dude - you fail it!
;)
One swallow does not a fellatrix make
So it's not 42?
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Slava Pestov, is that you?
Demented But Determined.
Simply put, it's a complex dimensional algebra with lots of non-trivial, commutative degrees of freedom. It features symmetry groups, conjugation and adjoint representation, and comes with a free manifold which displays automorphism - so it can neatly fit into any space. For a small extra fee, we'll throw in some Vogon Polynomials and a Spin(16) (Z/Z2) which, fundamentally, gets your clothes drier, quicker. The best thing about the E8 is it's R8 Root System(TM), which, with the use of Euclidean Space Vectors is guaranteed(*) to make sure you don't get octonions on your breath. And if you order now, we'll send you a bonus 8x6 photo of Jacques Tits.
But honestly, I foud the wikipedia article pretty useless too. I'm not nerd enough.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
I still don't understand. Are you able to use a Car Analogy?
I'm just waiting for Dvorak to denounce it. That'll be proof enough for me.
http://Communityville.com - A free place for new and old neighborhood webmasters to hang out.
"complex simple Lie algebras"?
Mathematics needs some new words, I think. And they need to stop using 'simple' in this kind of context. What about; instead of 'simple' they use 'mindbogglingly complicated' and instead of 'complex', 'totally headfucking' making the statement a more accurate 'totally headfucking mindboggleing complicated Lie algebras'.
Say you're Jay Leno. All of the classic cars in your garage forms a set.
If you swap two cars, that operation with the set of cars forms a group.
Maybe all of your cars are red. Then swapping any two doesn't change the pattern of colors in your garage. You have a color symmetry.
Happy? =)
From TFA: "if written out in tiny print, would cover an area the size of Manhattan."
Is that more than a LoC(Libraries of congress)?
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
He calls it "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything", but it is based off of E8 mathematics -- ...a complex, eight-dimensional mathematical pattern with 248 points first found in 1887, but only fully understood by mathematicians this year after workings, that, if written out in tiny print, would cover an area the size of Manhattan.
He must be using a form of the word "Simple" that I am not familiar with.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Don't count on any help there. BadAnalogyGuy is like a leftover acorn in the summer, long after the bears have woken from hibernation.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
Now I know how my wife feels when my friends come over and we talk shop.
This thread blows.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
The U(1) group is the group of all unitary, unicycles that leave the inner (dot) product invariant.
The SU(2) group is the group of all unitary, motorcycles that leave the inner (dot) product invariant and have a determinant of 1.
The SU(3) group is the group of all unitary, 3-wheeled novelty cars that leave the inner (dot) product invariant and have a determinant of 1.
Wow, nice quotes. I think you nailed it with the "fanboi-ism" charge. And as a bonus, if in the second paragraph you replace "string theory" with "BSD" and "physics" with "operating systems", it still makes sense.
;)
It's very clear that if someone dislikes BSD, she or he must dislike most of modern operating systems, too (Lee Smolin certainly does!). It's because BSD is nothing else than the crown, unification, or culmination of modern operating systems and all of its crucial results, insights, methods, principles, and values.
See? Gentoo, Linux, or anything else with fanboys. Try it with "PS3" and "gaming consoles", or any other combo.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Try to picture a spherically inverted multifaceted poly-dimensional plexoid of random size, add in an elemental variable thermal/mass coefficient linking system based on the gravitational and magnetic field enhanced rate of change fluctuations of sub-atomic particles and it all comes together like butter and honey on toast. Well, butter and honey don't really come together on toast but you get the idea...
Seriously, this story was just an excuse to combine the "theoryofeverything" and "surfing" tags.
www.timcoleman.com is a total waste of your time. Never go there.
Let's also mention some applications of E8. The E8 Lie group has applications in theoretical physics, in particular in string theory and supergravity. The group E8×E8 (the Cartesian product of two copies of E8) serves as the gauge group of one of the two types of heterotic string and is one of two anomaly-free gauge groups that can be coupled to the N = 1 supergravity in 10 dimensions. Clearly, E8 is the U-duality group of supergravity on an eight-torus (in its split form). Also, any fool can see that one way to incorporate the standard model of particle physics into heterotic string theory is the symmetry breaking of E8 to its maximal subalgebra SU(3)×E6.
(mostly stolen from the Wikipedia article).
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
So what you're saying is that God doesn't play dice with the universe, he plays fizzbin?
Yah, OK, so please, you try it.
-Garrett
If the LHC experiments prove him right..
I kinda feel like THC experiments are the only way to understand any of this.
Now I feel really bad. I didn't know that.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
He just plays with a loaded D20, apparently.
Your karma is insufficient for breakthroughs in theoretical physics.
Sig removed because it was obnoxious
no apparently she plays with a spirograph ....
>>No - it is called an exception lie algebra.
Not to be confused with a damned lie algebra, which is close to statistics.
How can you write a paper revolutionizing our understanding of physics if you don't use proper grammar?!
Don't put advice in your sig.
The apprentice was enlightened.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
The Problem with Wikipedia
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Not hard at all -- ! Goes like this: [Okay, I was wrong. It wasn't easy, and he won the debate.]
-kgj
-kgj
But I see something weird here (from wikipedia): "In conjunction with the 258-question relationship questionnaire, this is how all of the matches are delivered. One significant scoring factor is what may be called the honesty factor. Subtract the proposed divorce rate Dr. Warren wants in the US (10%) from the number of questions and...and...
HOLY CRAP!!!!
sig sig sig siggy sig