Grand Unified Theory Possible by 2050

pcarter writes "Scientific American has an interesting article about the possibility of unifying all the fundamental physical forces (electro-weak, strong and gravity) by 2050 and how it might be done. "

Comments

hope

[Haven]

I just hope the major players in physics like Hawking and Chakatou will be alive to see it.

Re:hope

[Sheridan]

Note that Steven Weinberg is as much a "major player" in physics as anybody.

Along with Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow, he was responsible for the unification of electromagnetism and the weak interaction into the electroweak theory mentioned in the article.

If anybody deserves to see a grand unified theory in their lifetime, it is Weinberg. (It's only a pity Richard Feynman won't be around to see it)
--
"I am not a nut-bag." -- Millroy the Magician

By 2050?

[pb]

I thought they already tried this with strings and superstrings and other physics mumbo-jumbo. Wake me up when they verify something interesting. This is on the order of "cosmologists aren't sure about dark matter". Big deal, I thought it was a dumb idea to begin with. Let me know when the headline is "theoretical physicists shut up so we can get work done".

However, if they ever do find out something like this, it'd be nice to use gravity as a constant power source, or something. I suppose the next step would involve converting one form into another... But I'd be happy with something simpler, like cold fusion, say. :)
---
pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.

Re:By 2050?

[Zan Thrax]

A unified theory will likely include sufficient understanding of gravity to effectively manipulate it by converting other forces into gravitational ones, possibly allowing a type of anti-gravity.

Re:By 2050?

[Chameleon]

...and once you have anti-gravity, you can produce "solid-state" (i.e. no rotating sections) gravity generation for spacecraft, as well as a nice propulsion system. It'll be interesting to see what develops first, nanotechnology as a method of repairing damaged cells, making food, etc, or an actual PRACTICAL device based on the GUFT.
--
Chris Dunham
http://www.tetrion.com/~chameleo/index.html

Re:By 2050?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nanotechnology, 100% definite...

Re:By 2050?

[InSaNe ASyLuM]

I thought they already tried this with strings and superstrings and other physics mumbo-jumbo

String theory is far from dead. It's currently evolving into what is called M-theory (basicly, it's a combination of the various approaches to string theory) Progress is a bit slow, but there's a reason they say string theory is 21st century physics that just happened to be discovered in the 20th century. The mathematics behind it are well beyond what anyone is currently capable of dealing with - at best, they can only come up with approximate solutions to approximate equations. (YOU try working out the mathematical equations to describe the physical principles of 6 extra dimensions folded up in a Calabi-Yau space) String theory has always had its critics, but it has survived thus far simply because it has such an enormous potential for explaining our universe. Don't discount it.

Re:By 2050?

[Harukaze]

I have to agree. We are must closer to nanotechnology simply because of our current work in quantum mechanics.
Now I'm new here, so I probably missed the article, but I will point to mankind's first organic computer chip. Granted, the thing is still in testing, but this is a supreme and wondrous breakthrough! If you don't know what I am talking about, this chip is designed to be inserted into the human body for the purpose of creating and distributing insolin(sp?) to the bloodstream of those with diabetes. Granted, the entire chip is not organic, but the combination of living cells and miniaturized circuitry simply astounds me.
Getting off track, somewhat, but my point here is this: if we have the technology to make a living cell, can it be much further until we create nanomachines? While at first the two technologies might seem somewhat unrelated, I will point out that the circuitry of the organic chip is small enough to be on the cellular (or smaller) level. Also, the interaction of machine and organics can lead to the ability of nanomachines to reconstruct living tissue. The next step is to further decrease the physical size of the technology, which is up to the quantum physicists. I predict (based on not much, granted, so I shall be horribly inaccurate) that we will have this technology in thirty or so years. Why thirty? Well, I figure we do have quite a ways to go in the quantum mechanics field before we can construct something small enough; then we need a way to program the little buggers:) Finally, we need to be able to have them physically carry out their job (thus the organic chip technology). If you feel like contesting my prediction, go ahead, but don't expect me to defend my own words here, since I admit right here and now that I am basing the prediction on almost nothing.

Theorizing Theorizing.

[lucianx]

Personally, I'm working on a Theory right now on how to Theorize Theorizing a Unified Theory by 2038, but I'm running into a few problems; mostly other Theories I had about how to develop Theories that would quasi-explain Theoretical recursion.



.lx, pre-registering for redundant moderation.

hrm...

[Haven]

The only thing I am worried about is the fact that people in 1960 thought we'd be living on the moon by now

Re:hrm...

[Chameleon]

Well, the point is, we COULD have a permanent lunar base if we really wanted to commit the resources to it. I personally don't think it's worthwhile at this point. Maybe in a couple decades, but not now.
--
Chris Dunham
http://www.tetrion.com/~chameleo/index.html

Re:hrm...

[Wigs]

Good point. However I think it has been overlooked that the most likely explanation of why we aren't living on the moon by now, is that the public lost interest. After we beat the USSR to the moon, nobody found space as interesting. It's debatable wether or not we would be living on the moon by now though, if we had continued(with as much vigor)exploring space. That's not the point though. I think there is a reasonable chance that if they think it's possible to produce a GUT, then they can do it. (side note: Who thought it was possible to get to the moon by the end of the decade when Kennedy challenge us?) However, the technology to produce this already exists. Really nothing new is being built. The public doesn't really have any interest (and therefore cannot lose any), because they are uninformed about this. As long as these facilities stay operational, the physcisists will be able to get their work done. Fifty years is a generous estimate as well. A lot of work can be done in fifty years.

unification

[quadong]

Whoo, today, for the first time in my life, I got a physics teacher to sorta explain when unification means in a way that actually meant something. Not that I understood really well. Can anyone point to somewhere that explains it in terms that can be understood by someone with 1 years of college physics? (And obviouly takes advantage of assuming that knowledge...)

Re:unification

[JimBob]

This is a good point to mention a truly good book that dumbs down the subjects of SuperString theory and Grand Unification: "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene. I haven't quite finished it yet, but it does an excellent job of explaining relativity and other fun subjects. I recommend it.

Re:unification

[KodaK]

Read "Dreams of a Final theory" by Stephen Weinberg.

It won't explain what's going on currently (it's kinda old, high-energy physics wise) but it will explain what the hell the Grand Unified Theory (GUT) or in some circles the Theory of Everything (TOE) is. It's a "to the point" sort of book, but a lot of it is about the SSC fiasco (most of the sentiments I share about that, BTW.) We spend way too much money going up and down in LEO. That money could be better spent looking at a TOE (GUT) that could take us OUT of LEO. (For those that don't know, LEO == Low Earth Orbit.)

Re:unification

[adiemus]

Another good one is Hyperspace. Its thrust is superstring theory, but it also gives quite a good overview of unification and all that would go along with a "Theory of Everything". I read (and understood) it while still in high school. It's quite an excellent read. (One of the few books that I enjoyed enough to read more than once)

Re:unification

[sb]

I think "The New Physics" (ISBN: 0-521-43831-4, Cambridge Univ. Press) by Paul Davies (editor) in an excellent introductory book. There is enough detail to distinguish it from the usual `popular science' books and at the same time it only assumes you know A-level physics/maths, so it should definitely be readable.
Your college library should have it, check it out!

Rgds,
sb.

Re:unification

[InSaNe ASyLuM]

Heh... got that book right in front of me :) It really is an excellent book, and quite current. I'd definately recommend it.

Re:unification

[InSaNe ASyLuM]

Yes, excellent book. Michio Kaku has written a number of excellent books. I'd also recommend Beyond Einstein. It was one of the first I'd ever read on the subject. About Time by Paul Davies is also excellent, though not entirely on topic for this discussion. If you like the others though, it will probably be of great interest to you. You just have to get through the first few chapters where he discusses various mystical beliefs surrounding the nature of time - I found that a bit annoying.

Re:unification

[kkenn]

Good book (this was the one which put me on the path of becoming a string theorist myself) but it it somewhat out of date - the number of changes in string theory since 1995 are incredible, and it barely recognises the state of play from the mid-80s which Kaku describes.

Re:unification

[Anonymous Coward]

funny how 'super string theory' makes people sound intelligent - too bad its useless to you and me. the grand unification theory refers to a mathematical formula that would explain all fields (forces) and thus, energy. the four forces are strong, weak, electromagnetic, and gravitational. physicists are uncomfortable with four things that are so similar, but take more than one equation to explain. more helpful to a first year student, and all of us in general, is something that one of my first physics teachers taught us. it is the GUMMI theory. Author is: Dr. Vince McManaman, Montgomery Community College, Germantown, MD. GUMMI = Grand Unified McManaman (not sure what the I is for, guess it sounds better). this means that all forms of energy, when added = Constant. kinetic, potential, electrical, heat, rotational, pressure, chemical, etc. what this means is that energy cannot be created or destroyed, it just changes form. take a car. you fill it up with fuel. as the fuel burns, the chemical energy is turned into kinetic energy to get you up the hill, sound energy from the blaring stereo, heat energy when you hit the brakes, heat energy out the tailpipe and to the water in the radiator to keep the engine from overheating from inefficient combustion, etc. the human body is another good example. just like the car, we eat our fuel, and digestion is our engine. we use energy to climb stairs, and to run the biological computer we call a brain. this type of thinking helps me everyday as an engineer/applied physicist, i hope it helps you as well. its all about energy.

50 year prediction

[/dev/kev]

There is a chance the work of unification will be completed by 2050, but about that we cannot be confident.

I'll say you can't be confident. Given the speed at which developments move these days, in all areas of science and technology, who would dare to predict exactly where we'll be in 50 years time?

Better still, whose prediction would be right? Very few, I imagine. I'm no particle or nuclear physicist, but I have trouble working out what stage I'll be at in two week's time...

I'd say let's just keep plodding along at a solution, and see how far we get...

Re:50 year prediction

[chadmulligan]

I'll say you can't be confident. Given the speed at which developments move these days, in all areas of science and technology, who would dare to predict exactly where we'll be in 50 years time?

I've followed this subject with great interest for many years. Although I'm not qualified to comment on the fine technical aspects, high-energy particle physics is bound to obey certain time steps... the author is no doubt simply extrapolating from a curve of delivery dates vs. energy of current and planned accelerators, and marking 50 years (plus/minus 50, you will notice) as a likely date when accelerators will reach a certain energy range.

This is the range where he's reasonably confident that there'll be enough significant events to either rule out all but one of the competing theories, or to merge them into one unified theory. At the same time he seems to consider that this is a sufficiently long time for the required mathematical techniques to be worked out, and that enough computing power will be available.

Given that construction times of these accelerators are now over a decade, and likely to get worse they bigger they get - not to speak of the political and financial contortions - his estimate seems quite reasonable.

Consider a parallel situation where most /.ers will have a better feel for things. Suppose you were asked to estimate when 1024-bit (or whatever other magic number you prefer) encryption will be broken. You can estimate the computing power necessary, make an estimate when this will be available by Moore's Law, shave off some years by postulating a cluster of some kind (Beowulf, if you wish ;-)), postulate both a breakdown of Moore's Law at some future time and/or a new technology that goes around that, and so forth. So you'll probably end up with some fuzzy range of so-and-so-many decades. See? If you know the field, it's not so hard.

Then again, if the singularity posited by SF writer Vernor Vinge and cohorts comes around - estimates are somewhere in the 22nd century - everything will be either solved in a very short period of time or declared uninteresting...

Re:50 year prediction

[Luis Casillas]

On a similar note, I think that making that kind of prediction is pretty much like playing the lottery. You can be "right" in the number you predict/play, in the sense that it eventually turns out that 2050 is the winner, after all. But if you had no well motivated reason for predicting that, the fact that you get it right is completely uninteresting.

---

My doubt ....

[Taco Cowboy]

... that humanities gonna see that day.

All is fine and finess for those who do the forecasting, that the final realization of the Grand Unification of all forces will somehow make us all that much better.

That is, _IF_ we human can do it _BEFORE_ we blow all of us in such a grandscale that we'd be in minute smitherines way before 2050.

The way US is bullying all other countries all over the world, I have doubt that humanities can survive until 2050.

People who are being bullied tends to rebel, and the more US bullies the whole world, the more it is possible that the world will rebel against Uncle Sam, and with over 7,000 NUKES pointed at EACH AND EVERY CORNER in this world, what is left in 2050 will be a bunch of barren wasted rocks, orbiting somewhere the third piece of rock (from the Sun) used to be.

Re:My doubt ....

[Anonymous Coward]

sorry dood but it's not the us we need to worry about, it'st he british, they'll do anything to try to restore power to their empire, including getting in a nuclear war, the thing that sucks is that the us will have to follow britian whatever they get themselves stuck in, webreak away and let their country go into chaos and let us just live our normal lives, not being controlled by them like we are now.

the elegant universe

[-ryan]

read the elegant universe by brian greene. it covers this topic well (even for someone with little education in physics). i found the book easy to read and fascinating, however, the two PhD's i work with think string theory (or T.O.E.) is absolutely absurd.

so much for that one....

-ryan

Re:the elegant universe

[tlhIngan]

*Excellent* book!

Read that book, and loved all of it (certainly made me more knowledable in the subject).

GUT was a subject that wasn't covered in my physics courses }}:-(.

Re:the elegant universe

[InSaNe ASyLuM]

String theory has always had it's critics. There are plenty of PhDs who don't find it at all absurd.

GUE? Not possible?

[Anonymous Coward]

As I recall, unless they use the Riemmann metric tensor to measure and unify these field equations in extra dimentions, the GUE is not likely to happen. The primary limitation of this theory in the past has been the position of the obeservations relative to the observers, thereby lowering things into three dimentions. Basically, it's just a better way to fit a round peg in a square hole... anyone with enough time could make the equations...

Re:GUE? Not possible?

[kkenn]

From your misuse of terminology it's probable you don't actually know what the words you use mean, but I can reassure you that physicists are smart people and they do realise the theory must agree with the real world (e.g. einsteinian gravity at large scales).

Don't they do one of these every ten years?

[Christopher B. Brown]

There tends to be a "retrospective" issue roughly every ten years for magazines like Scientific American that supplies these sorts of predictions.

SCI AM admittedly tends to be a bit more serious than, say, Popular Science, which has been "predicting" hypersonic airliners fairly much continuously since the 1950s.

Re:Don't they do one of these every ten years?

[gad_zuki!]

Hypersonic airliners like, say, the Concord? Or is that just Supersonic?

Re:Don't they do one of these every ten years?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hypersonic airliners like, say, the Concord? Or is that just Supersonic?

The Concorde flies up to Mach 2 (twice the speed of sound), which is only considered supersonic. Hypersonic speeds would rather be in the Mach 10-20 range.

Re:Don't they do one of these every ten years?

[Beede]

SCI AM admittedly tends to be a bit more serious than, say, Popular Science

Most people don't know, but the official name of the magazine was changed to Popular Scientific American a number of years ago. The same time that they started printing profiles of scientists with their photos. (I understand next year they'll be requiring them to pose in swimming suits). For something much like the old Scientific American, I suggest you check out American Scientist . I've heard they got some of the SA staff, but can't verify that myself.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Your doubt...

[lucianx]

...is not helping.

Read a book, drink a glass of water, fantasize about Julie Andrews circa 1965. You might feel better!


.lx, not helping.

Your doubt...

[lucianx]

...is not helping.

Read a book, drink a glass of water, fantasize about Julie Andrews circa 1965. You might feel better!


.lx, not helping.

Elegant Universe & String Theory

[eries]

I think the possibilities for a Theory of Everything within our lifetime is pretty exciting. Anyone who is interested in learning more about the subject (instead of just spouting anti-theory crud) should check out a book I'm reading now called The Elegant Universe. It's all about recent attempts to solve the major problem with modern theoretical physics, namely, the incompatibility of point-particle quantum mechanics and Einstein's general theory of relativity.

I can't pretend to understand all of it, but I think it's by far the clearest explanation of string theory and its consequences I have ever seen.

Today's fascinating insight: according to string theory, our universe has as many as 9 spatial dimensions. Furthermore, the universe cannot keep contracting forever - it has a theoretical minimum size. Cool, eh?

Re:Elegant Universe & String Theory

[Bio]

I can recomend this book "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene. It's very enyojable reading - though not easy.

Check out this web site (String Theory) to find out more.

Re:Elegant Universe & String Theory

[InSaNe ASyLuM]

Today's fascinating insight: according to string theory, our universe has as many as 9 spatial dimensions

Keep reading... they're now saying 10 spatial dimensions, and 1 temporal. It seems that with the extra spatial dimension, the various string theories (Type I, Type IIa, Type IIb, Heterotic type O(32) and Heterotic type E8 x E8) turn out to be "reflections" of each other, and a new theory, called M-theory, is starting to emerge from it... but I don't want to spoil the book for you ;)

My question is, and I think this might have been asked in Elegant Universe, is: Is it possible that some of these extra dimensions are actually temporal dimensions, and not spatial dimensions? i.e., might we live in a Universe with 6 spatial dimensions and 5 temporal dimensions? I'm curious as to how extra temporal dimensions might behave...

Re:Elegant Universe & String Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always believed that there are no "temporal" dimensions -- just changes in perspective due to movement through extra-dimensional space.

Re:Elegant Universe & String Theory

[jafac]

First, they should figure out what the actual mass of the universe is.

First, they should figure out what the actual age of the universe is.

First, they should figure out why deep space probes are accelerating away from the sun faster than Newtonian physics says they should.

First, they should identify the graviton (if such a thing exists) - and actually prove that Gravity is a real force.

These are basics, that just have not been done. I don't like criticizing those giants who have done all these wonderful great things to date, when about the best I've ever done was make a battery out of a potato (actually, last weekend, I made plasma in my microwave oven!). When these basic things have been resolved, then maybe they can talk about unifying all forces of nature. Until then, it looks like they're as far away as ever from solving that riddle. I just hate it when humanity gets a big head.

And as far as string theory goes, I've heard different variations from 12 dimensions, to 10 dimensions to 9 dimensions, to, you guessed it, even 1 dimension. (don't remember whether that was a legitimate theory or a joke or not, it was back in the late 80's)

I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".

Re:Elegant Universe & String Theory

[kkenn]

This kind of thing is indeed considered. Basically under M-theory you lose absolute notions of what dimension of space-time you are in (e.g. 9, 10, 11), what the fundamental objects are (strings, point particles, higher-dimensional membranes), and even how many time dimensions there are (all of these change depending on how you look at the same thing).

Exactly how having extra time dimensions works is still very much an open question, but it seems that it's not as inconsistent as you might think (in some cases you can't propagate along this extra dimension, so there's only one "evolving time", in other cases the dimension is periodic, i.e. "events repeat themselves" in a consistent way, etc). It's very much current research..

Re:Elegant Universe & String Theory

[InSaNe ASyLuM]

Perhaps our current understanding of the nature of the universe is incapable of describing the things you mentioned. String theory, while focused on unification, also redefines many of our beliefs about our universe. It may be that it is necessary to continue developing this theory, assuming it is on the right track, before we can even hope to understand the points you mentioned. For starters, I believe that string theorists have claimed that they may have a solution to the dark matter problem - something they came across while developing the theory without any thought for finding a solution to this particular problem. Now, it may be that this is just another false lead, but you can't deny the fact that many of the discoveries we have made in Physics first required a complete overhaul of our previous understandings of the universe.

Re:Elegant Universe & String Theory

[kkenn]

These questions are all related. Solve one, and you solve the other.

This is something many non-physicists don't realise: it's not just idle speculation and playing with words ("I think the universe is donut-shaped". "No, I think it's more cubical") - a theory is "written" in terms of mathematics, and for the theory to be useful it can be used to answer a whole bunch of seemingly unrelated questions about the universe.

Your questions are just the kinds of things which theoretical physicists hope to be able to answer convincingly by formulating a (more) fundamental theory of nature.

GUT

[KodaK]

You know, I follow this stuff pretty closely. I'm no physicist, nor do I pretend to be one, but I don't know how anyone can even pretend to possibly predict what we're going to know at a given time. (Yes, I've read the article.) There have been a few theories posited in the past that attempted to unify all the forces, some of them promising, but IMO, we're not going to know much unless we can do more EXPERIMENTING.

We lost the SSC, which would have told us a lot, and we're probably not going to have any accelerators for quite a while that can prove or disprove any of these theories. While the math may look good, even elegant, it's all hogwash unless we can DO something with it, some sort of experimental verification.

Personaly, I'd like to see an accelerator built around the Earth, now there we could hit some energies that could show us some really neat stuff, but we're more concerned with ketchup viscoscity tests here in the US than we are fundimental science. Bah, yeah, I'm bitter.

Anyway, any physicists out there who would care to share with us some of the more recent inroads we've made here? What have we seen? I haven't heard much about the Higgs boson since "The God Particle" (any armchair physicists out there should check that book out) and not much at all about high energy physics in general. Is there anything happening?

I'm rambling again, someone put a sock in my mouth...

Re:GUT

[Spasemunki]

There was a very interesting essay by Richard Feynman on just this topic in a book on Superstring Theory that I read recently. His view was that a lot of these theories were getting off into speculation and concerns of mathematical elegence while failing to stay rooted in experimental data. Some of the predictions made by some of the early superstring theories were predicting particles with energies so high that they would be impossible to test, but people just continued building on top of them, piling speculation on speculation. I think maybe some of the hype around superstrings is dieing down(they weren't mentioned in every other sentence the way they used to be in articles about the Unified Theory), but some of the more solid ideas that they provoked inquiry into(perturbative theories, gauge symmatries, and ultimately M-Theory) are being built into possible future models. Strings could be the "aether" of the 20th century; not really there, but used to give rise to some damn useful physics and mathematics(Maxwell's equations, the foundations of classical electrodynamics were written based on the assumption of the existence of an aether; but hey, they work well anyway).

PS- the book with Feynman's essay, as well as a lot of insightful views on superstring theory, is called Superstrings: A Theory of Everything?, and I believe it was put out from an imprint called Echo, but I may be on crack.

Re:GUT

[Compuser]

The problem is that many theorists (including
apparently Weinberg), are presumptious. To claim
that Higgs boson will be discovered is a joke.
It may be discovered, but given how many times
its mass has been revised upward because they
didn't find anything at lower masses, it'd sure be
a surprise if Higgs existed. Similarly, there has
been a ridiculous number of revisions of proton
decay times and they just keep revising it up.
They may have a point, but their case looks
rather bleak right now.
Being a physicist, I view high energy experiments
as the greatest waste of money since welfare. At
any given time you got two or three machines
in the world capable of reproducing results from
other groups. How anyone trusts high energy
experiments is beyond me. And surely building an
accelerator around earth is a bad idea, precisely
because a unique apparatus will never produce
trustable data.

Re:GUT

[Anonymous Coward]

> To claim that Higgs boson will be discovered is a joke.
> It may be discovered, but given how many times its mass has been
> revised upward because they didn't find anything at lower masses,
> it'd sure be a surprise if Higgs existed.

The existence of the Higgs boson will be verified or falsified within
the next 5-7 years with the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) at CERN, which
will have an center of mass energy in the TeV range. The current
standard model (SM) of physics, the most accurate theory of all known
physics, gives a hard limit for the Higgs mass smaller than 1 TeV, the lower
bound is revised as experiments proceed (currently ~80 GeV). The
Higgs mass is a parameter within the SM, therefore theoretical
predictions of the Higgs mass other than the hard limit of 1 TeV stem
from further assumptions and extensions to the SM, such as the Minimal
Supersymmetry Standard Model (MSSM) and are therefore subject to
revision as experiments proceed. The MSSM predicts one Higgs boson
(yes, there 5 within MSSM) at ~110-130 GeV.



> Being a physicist, I view high energy experiments as the greatest
> waste of money since welfare. At any given time you got two or
> three machines in the world capable of reproducing results from
> other groups.

Any given accelerators (Tevatron, Hera, LEP, LHC) have 2 to 4 detectors,
these detectors differ in design, so you can verify results among
these different detectors.



> How anyone trusts high energy experiments is beyond me.

How someone how claims to be a physicist, can utter something like that,
is beyond me. You should have learned during your training, that the
SM (QED, QCD, ...) is the most accurate of all theories upto this day,
as verified by empirical data. I know of now other branch of physics
(although I am willing to learn), that can boost a theoretical and
experimental accuracy of 10^-11 (such as the anomalous magnetic
moment of the electron)

Re:GUT

[jsm2]

the greatest waste of money since welfare

Just a friendly pointer -- it is remarks like that which tend to get you physics guys a bit of a reputation for arrogance.

jsm

Re:GUT

[conform]

To claim that Higgs boson will be discovered is a joke. It may be discovered, but given how many times its mass has been revised upward because they didn't find anything at lower masses, it'd sure be a surprise if Higgs existed. Similarly, there has been a ridiculous number of revisions of proton decay times and they just keep revising it up. They may have a point, but their case looks rather bleak right now.

a good portion of the high-rest mass particles discovered in the last half century have been predicted by theory well before their discovery in colliders. the top quark is the most well known example and it fits the exact pattern you describe. estimates for it's rest mass kept getting pushed up as it failed to show up. eventually, of course, it was discovered.

the Z messenger particle is another good example. and some of the neutrinos (though they aren't heavy, just slippery). so there's plenty of grounding for faith in the ability of particle physics.

what's more, the standard model is just a theory. recall that quarks, with their 1/3 and 2/3 charges, were postulated as imaginary placeholder particles to fit some data. very few people took them seriously until a few early believers showed just how well the idea fit the data. so it's not inconceivable that someone will come up with a more elegant explanation of mass and electroweak-strong unification than scalar fields and the higgs particle.

Re:GUT

[Compuser]

I thought binary pulsars established GR
to higher precision than SM.
As for double checking... In most experimental
fields the argument is : "if you don't
trust a result - verify it yourself". It is
usually easy to build apparatuses up to
$1M, because you can get funding. More
expensive equipment is unique. It is not
uncommon for a branch of science to use
fudge factors and small calibration
adjustments to keep data in agreement with theory.
If I believe that the industry practice is
unacceptable, I have no choice of building
an accelerator the way I want and calibrating it
the way I want.
As for double checks with multiple detectors...
High energy facilities are huge, and require
a lot of personnel. To suggest that there is no
exchange of information between groups before
measurement is hardly believable. Thus you cannot
in good faith claim that those are independent
tests. Indeed, independent tests in other areas
of physics can be and are done by newcomers
with their own custom built equipment. You can
build your own Auger if you do not trust
commercial equipment, and many people do just
that. If you think that those nanotech guys
are bullshitting you, you can build your own
STM or AFM (typical cost $50K-300K) and try it
yourself. But try building your own SSC.
Good luck.
Also, when a paper has 100 names on it, I gotta
believe that somewhere somehow at least one
person made a mistake somewhere. It's just
basic thermo that entropy goes up in statistical
systems.
And don't tell me what I should have learned. As
a physicist my job is to be paranoid and doubtful.
Theories are nice because you can rederive them
yorself and in fact that's how you learn them.
Experiments need not be trusted unless there is
good reason to.
Lastly, my point was exactly that Higgs may or
_may not_ be discovered, we don't know one way
or another. If they do discover it, I hope they
produce some reasonable event count (unlike
top quark discovery or neutrino experiments
in which event counts are so small they can be
done by hand, you don't need a computer to count
those events).

Re:GUT

[Anonymous Coward]

> I thought binary pulsars established GR
> to higher precision than SM.
Not to papers and publications I have see
so far, many astrophysical observations take into
account SM effects, thus are limited by SMs precission.


> As for double checking...
> [...]
> Good luck.
So your "homemade" equipment verifies the first digits
of an "lab" experiment, based on your motions you
would scrap all higher accuracy, because you cannot
reproduce it ?
You take a strong stance against "industry" and
"establisted facilities" and stress the importance
of "newcomers", I wonder why ?
And "more expensive equipment" is rare but not unique,
that is why they are several accelerators worldwide.


> As for double checks with multiple detectors... [...]
Exchange of information between the groups takes
place the result level, as I mentioned earlier
each detector is unique (different myon chambers,
vertex tracker, ...).


> Also, when a paper has 100 names on it, I gotta
> believe that somewhere somehow at least one
> person made a mistake somewhere. It's just
> basic thermo that entropy goes up in statistical
> systems.
Of course mistakes happen, they can already happen when
I or you conduct an experiment.
But within an colloboration you have checks and redundances.
Data is published with systematical and statistical
errors. And then you can check data from different
detectors of one accelerator, and then from different
accelerators.


> And don't tell me what I should have learned. As
> a physicist my job is to be paranoid and doubtful.
Sceptical and doubtful yes. Paranoid no.


> Theories are nice because you can rederive them
> yorself and in fact that's how you learn them.
> Experiments need not be trusted unless there is
> good reason to.
Experiments are trusted because they are reproducable.
Or experimental data will be dismissed if this is not
the case (coldfusion@home anyone ?).


> Lastly, my point was exactly that Higgs may or
> _may not_ be discovered, we don't know one way
> or another. If they do discover it, I hope they
> produce some reasonable event count (unlike
> top quark discovery or neutrino experiments
> in which event counts are so small they can be
> done by hand, you don't need a computer to count
> those events).
The SM has remained accurate over 30 years, many
doubted the existence of the top (former truth) quark,
yet it was discovered in 1996 at 175 GeV, up until then
the top mass was always under "annual upward revision".
The Higgs mass is the only missing component in this
successful model.
Yes, it is only a model and bound to be extended or
replaced, but its successor will have to reproduce the SM
in its region of validity (which is expanded).

Re:GUT

[kkenn]

Unfortunately, the problem is that there is NO experimental particle physics data which is inconsistent with the current theory, and the current theory is:
a) ugly
b) full of "fudge factors"

The only thing the current theory ("The Standard Model") does not (and _can not_, for very fundamental reasons) address is how to reconcile gravitation with quantum mechanics. This is the single biggest physical problem of the 20th century, and all of the greats (Einstein, Dirac, Feynman, ...) attacked it without success.

So, without any experimental evidence to guide us (the SSC would definitely have shown the way forward, and things like the LHC coming online in the next few years hopefully will) the only things we can do are speculate, and look for a simple, elegant theory which is consistent with itself and with the known data, but which can explain a larger amount of stuff than the standard model can.

Surprisingly, the requirement of "internal consistency" is a very strong restriction on what can be considered..but despite decades of trying, the smartest physicists in the world _just haven't been able to find_ a plausible extension to the SM which doesn't involve either a bunch of problems (apparent inconsistencies), a theory as complicated and arbitrary as the original (or more so), or a lot of extra "weird stuff".

Maxwell's equations don't presuppose an aether, actually - originally they might have been stated that way (I haven't read the paper), but they make a lot MORE sense when you write them in terms of special relativity (i.e. they reduce to a single four-dimensional tensor equation), which is aetherless.

Re:GUT

[Compuser]

I think we are saying the same thing and differ
mostly in judgement. If experiments are
reproducible then they are trusted. My sole claim
is that I do not believe you can claim
reproducibility from a select few facilities.
BTW, cold fusion had precisely this problem,
where a few advocates would claim to have
results and everyone else couldn't reproduce them.
Now imagine these select few advocates are running
high energy experiments. Makes you wonder, eh?
It is also a clever claim to say that systematic
error can exist in every experiment. Sure, but
where is it more probable?
My group has recently built a system and you can
call it homemade, but it was designed to be one of
the best in the field. Certainly there is no point
in building a system with less accuracy than
existing systems. I don't take a stance against
"industry", although I do believe that fresh ideas
are important (duh). I just think that high
energy is a tight group of experimentalists and
theorists each of which is brainwashing the other:
Theorists: we need top quark.
Experimentalists: we have a hundred events but
we'll call it a discovery because you theorists
need it to sleep at night.
Theorists: we need neutrino oscillations
(some) experimentalists: our evidence is
inconclusive but let's say we found it.
Theorists: we need Higgs...

Re:GUT

[Anonymous Coward]

> I think we are saying the same thing and differ
> mostly in judgement. If experiments are
> reproducible then they are trusted. My sole claim
> is that I do not believe you can claim
> reproducibility from a select few facilities.
> BTW, cold fusion had precisely this problem,
> where a few advocates would claim to have
> results and everyone else couldn't reproduce them.
> Now imagine these select few advocates are running
> high energy experiments. Makes you wonder, eh?
Not really, take for instance "atomic" clocks, there are only a select
few facilities worldwide, which define the "standard time". My
"low-end" or "homemade" atomic clock cannot compete with these clocks,
but it shows me that the principle is sound. The same thing with
particle accelerators and detectors, I have such "low-end" or
"homemade" devices, which shows me that the principle is sound and not
some kind of magic. In contrast, cold fusion was magic, empirically
and theoretically.

Physicists tend to rediscover in laboratories, what already happens
in nature, for instance the cosmic shower in the atmosphere is by far
the most powerful accelerator "on" earth, unfortunately it has a very
low lumenosity. "Warm" fusion powers stars. Natural nuclear fission
remains have been discovered on earth. So "cold" fusion should have
happened in nature, if it really would be that simple.


> [...]
> My group has recently built a system and you can
> call it homemade, but it was designed to be one of
> the best in the field. Certainly there is no point
> in building a system with less accuracy than
> existing systems. I don't take a stance against
> "industry", although I do believe that fresh ideas
> are important (duh).
Far enough.


> I just think that high
> energy is a tight group of experimentalists and
> theorists each of which is brainwashing the other:
> Theorists: we need top quark.
> Experimentalists: we have a hundred events but
> we'll call it a discovery because you theorists
> need it to sleep at night.
> Theorists: we need neutrino oscillations
> (some) experimentalists: our evidence is
> inconclusive but let's say we found it.
> Theorists: we need Higgs...
I almost agree with this comment, but take exception at the word
"brainwashing". It is an "exoteric" field, which has a high barrier
of entry (in many regards ;-), and where theorists and
experimentalists work very close and synergistically, which is not
really a Bad Thing(TM).

But as for the accusations of "faking"
results:

- The top quark was first sighted at the Tevatron in 1994, it took
them 2 years you gather enough statistics to make a solid claim.

- The Z boson was first sighted at the LEP in 1989.
But now (1999) at LEP II, where Z is produced at threshold, enough
picobarns have been generated to demand \alpha^4 calculations
for theorists and in order to keep up with experimental
accuracy of the Z mass.

- The (Super)Kamikando had first evidence of neutrino oscillations
as early as 1996, but only now do they have enough statistics
to make a solid claim, which is still not undisputed.


Before this "correspondence" goes on, I do not necessarily
disagree with you, but I take exception at your blunt
formulations like "waste of money", "paranoid", "brainwash", ...
From a fellow physicists I would expect a more careful assessment.


Have a nice morning.

Note: Author knows his stuff...

[morris57]

Please do not take this article lightly. Weinberg is extremely well respected in his field. It is not a case of Scientific American just paying a random physicist to write an article on GU. What he says should be every bit as beleiveable as Hawking and all the other great scientists who came before him. He is a Nobel laureate, and regarded among his peers as one of the premier minds working on GUT. At the American Physical Society meeting last year in Atlanta, I saw a huge room filled with all of the country's greatest physicists come to see Weinberg. So, this article shouldn't be put down lightly.

Hawking's Expectations

[jblackman]

Stephen Hawking himself gives Grand Unification a 50/50 chance in the next twenty years; 2050 sounds almost pessimistic in that context.

I'm taking a course in theoretical physics next semester. I can't wait to get a more thorough understanding of the issues involved so that I can better appreciate what a monumental achievement Unification is when we finally get there.

Maybe it's just me being all starry-eyed optimistic, but the prospect of cracking universal mysteries like these really gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling about the potential of humanity. Hmm, yeah, that's just my techno-idealism coming out :)

-jay

Re:Hawking's Expectations

[Ziviyr]

Stephen Hawking himself was convinced that time would run backwards as the universe collapsed. I figured he stole the theory from superman (reversing time by reversing Earth's rotation, HAH).

We'll get the problem when we get it. Personally, I think its silly to think the foundation of the universe is based on random distribution... Thats just me.

Thank God

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn those People who will be born then, it'll be so much easier to learn Physics ; )

VERY large underground accelerator, possibly next

[lemmingEffect]

this is a bit offtopic and i haven't read the entire article (skimmed it) but i'd like to relate something:

When i was in high school, i attended a saturday morning physics program at fermilab (il) which has a particle accelerator. the program was pretty much a lecture series by researchers there about "basic" concepts, theories, and trends in high-energy physics.

one of topics that was covered is the need for faster accelerators in order to acheive the energy necessary to do the experiment that would verify any unifed theory.

the lecture mentioned that (at the time) fermilab had the fastest accelerator, but the new CERN accelerator (which is active now, i assume) would eclipse it.

now the part i found interesting was the fact that the accelerator at CERN would not be rivaled for a while because the only way to get significantly faster would be to build it larger. on the scale of a few HUNDRED MILES larger.

one of the proposals that the lecturer showed us for a future accelerator would be drilled by robots and would span one or two states!

i couldn't find anything that references this on the site so maybe someone who works there or has more knowledge on this stuff can help me out? please? *grin*

When I'm old and grey...

[FFFish]

...I imagine I'll look back on my life and say, damn, that anti-grav stuff sure changed the way the world works.

Just like ye olden folke today can look back and say the same of electronics.

Or summin' like that.

How the hell did this get moderated up to 3 ???

[xHost]

Re:How the hell did this get moderated up to 3 ???

[toriver]

Is that a trick question? Two dudes with moderation points chose higher than normal on it, and at least one selected "Informative".

Re:How the hell did this get moderated up to 3 ???

[Anonymous Coward]

but it's not insightful, or interesting.

Re:How the hell did this get moderated up to 3 ???

[Anonymous Coward]

>but it's not insightful, or interesting.

Two moderators thought so. You are not a moderator. Shut up.

experimentation?

[tabish]

The main problem with experimentation in superstring theory is that the energies that would be involved in experiments that prove the existence of string are many orders of magnitude past the energies expent in modern-day particle accelerators.

This has been one of the main criticisms of string theory, i.e. that the proponents of string theory put themselves in a very convenient place by saying that the existence of strings cannot be proven because of their very definition of being of such high energy. Further problems are mostly in the fact that we do not know the equations that describe these strings. No quantitative data are available for the verification or disproving of the theory.

But the quantitative conclusions of string theory are in agreement with experiments, though this is not at all conclusive. And string theory is a conceptually simple and elegant theory. It takes a mess of many subatomic particles (19 I think) and reduces them to different variations of a single thing. All of physics has always favored the simpler explanation of why things work in the universe, for example, the fact that there are only three kinds of forces in the universe (electroweak, strong, and gravitational).

One must remember that string theory is just that: a theory. It is not even close to being as accepted as quantum theory or relativity. It is a work in progress, and may simply be a dead end as much of scientific ends up being... however, should it hold up, it has the potential to radically redefine our view of the universe.

Oh, and btw, much of this is simply paraphrase of Brian Greene's excellent book The Elegant Universe. I know a lot of people have mentioned this, but it is the ideal book for armchair physicists... those with even passing interest in the subject should pick up a copy. And worry not if you know nothing of other prerequisite material such as quantum physics. The sections in this book explaining quantum theory and relativity are in and of themselves impetus enough to buy the book... the extra three hundred pages on string theory are just a wonderful bonus.

Science and peer review

[Lonesmurf]

To the best of my knowledge, science today is not what it was in say 1900. A discovery like the UFT is not something that could possibly be predicted as to when it will occur. In my opinion, it will eventually be discovered by one man/woman (let's be PC here, ok?) who has decided to take a radical view that just happened to be *right*.

The Peer Review System

The Peer Review System is a stifling and backwards way to attack something as complex and virtually limitless as the field of Physics (ok, perhaps science in general). I don't believe that it is a very logical approach to have established scientists, with set and narrow views, dictating the coarse of the sciences of tomorrow. Without the recognition and assistance of these high-level scientists, a theory, however valid, will very possibly be lost due to simple-mindedness of the few.

--

Re:Science and peer review

[SEE]

The Peer Review System is a stifling and backwards way to attack something as complex and virtually limitless as the field of Physics (ok, perhaps science in general). I don't believe that it is a very logical approach to have established scientists, with set and narrow views, dictating the coarse of the sciences of tomorrow

[SARCASM]
I agree absolutley. If it weren't for the peer review system, we'd have junked this "aether" nonsense and Newton's laws of motion defended by those old fuddy-duddy scientists a long time ago in favor of relativity and quantum mechanics.
[/SARCASM]

Re:Science and peer review

[PG13]

The peer review system is merely an acknowledgment of the fact that many more radical ideas are wrong than right. The peer review system ensures that a theory is accepted/published only it if has significant evidence behind it.

Sure it is conservative and slow to act but IF a theory is correct it will have convincing evidence and hence eventually convince the establishment.

Sure the peer review system isn't perfect but what do you want? God editing Nature? There appears to be no better system to keep out the kooks the crackpots and the well intentioned but flawed theories from driving out the good science

Re:Science and peer review

[Gid1]

True. However, science is perfect.. scientists are not.

Have you ever seen geologists and paleontologists argue about theories? Hear them rattle on about the bird -v- lizard thing? They always boil down to personal reputations and eventually holy wars. It's worse than Linux -v- NT zealotry.

I remember that Hawking, as an undergraduate, stood up in a lecture of some bigwig (who someone will now undoubtably name) and told him he was wrong. If Hawking had been mistaken, he'd be lucky to get a milkman's job in Cambridge. For crying out loud, Einstein was a patent clerk, and we know how clueless they tend to be!

Scientists in general really need to be a bit more open-minded and a little more objective. That's why peer-review (a good idea in principle) isn't as good as it should be. Far too often does it boil down with one of the establishment completely trashing a new idea because it disagrees with their own theories -- probably couldn't take the embarrassment of being on the wrong side.

</flamebait>

Re:Science and peer review

[rde]

To the best of my knowledge, science today is not what it was in say 1900
It's probably not what you meant, but I suspect that science today has a lot in common with 1900. Specifically, the feeling that we're 'almost there'; in 1900 the only things that were pissing off scientists were blackbody radiation and the Michelson/Morley experiment. Apart from that, pretty much everything was explained. Today we see that we're fifty years from a TOE.
An explanation of blackbody radiation resulted in quantum mechanics, and Michelson/Morley eventually gave us relativity. No-one could claim after 1920 that we were even close to covering everything.
The LHC will, I suspect, throw up results that'll confuse us all. Fifty years from now, most of these will be explained and someone will say that we're fifty years away from a TOE.

sure

[Ripat]

Sure, of course "There is a chance the work of unification will be completed by 2050.". There is also a chance that some smart guy will complete it tommorrow, or in 200 years.

I think this is a intressting subject, but I find it more than a little silly to specify a date, when it might, possibly, perhaps, maybe, with a little luck, be finished.

After over 50 years of work...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can just see it, after well over fifty years of work, the project is abandoned after it is found it is based on the premisce that 1+1=3. Everything else of course works out...
I hate it when that happens.

Cool! I love those domed cities!

[Greyfox]

You can usually get them by the 1940's if your competition is not on the ball, but apparently we're a bit behind this game. Quick question though, has someone applied the lawyernuke patch? We could be in for a bit of trouble...

Transmeta processor release possible by 2049

[mistabobdobalina]

Reuters: In his Comdex keynote, Finnish wunderkinder Linus Torvalds stated that secretive startup Transmeta will almost certainly release its product before a Grand Unified Theory of Everything(TM) is released and quote "way before Microsoft releases a stable OS."

Planet girdling accelerators

[ppanon]

Well, the obvious answer is that first you build one on the moon where you only need to place magnets without having to worry about evacuating the beam path. Then, if you find something interesting, you build the next one on the Earth
to verify the results. No problem :-)

PAP

Only a computer can devise a Grand Unified Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

Such mysteries require Deep Thought far beyond what humans are capable of. We need to build a stupendous super computer to do the thinking for us. We need a computer so amazingly intelligent that even before its data banks are connected up it would start from 'I think therefore I am' and get as far as the existence of rice pudding and income tax before anyone could manage to turn it off.

Such a computer could devise the Grand Unified Theory, as well as answer the questions of life, the universe, and everything. We would then surely have all of the answers, although the philosphers might get a bit peaved.


Regards,
lunkwell@hyperintelligent_pan_dimensional_beings .org

Grand Unified Theory

[Listen Up]

Alright, I am a Mathematics/Physics major at my college. All I want to know is "How many people actually understood what the article said...?" Oh, I see, only two of the hundreds of posters. That's okay, it just makes reading some of these posts funny, but sad at the same time. Alright, here's what the article is missing as far as linking Quantum theory with Standard theory. The link isn't impossible at all...If you have no clue what you are talking about. Has anybody here dealt with Chaos Theory and implications of the Riemmann Zeta function for starters. And I don't mean a search on Yahoo for a definition. Modern science cannot to this day even predict accurately, given all determinable factors what will happen during a reaction on an atomic scale. Quantum theory is based on Probalistic Physics, Relativistic or Standard Theory is based on Deterministic Physics. These two can never be the same. Many more discoveries and fundamental facts will need to be discovered and proved on related subjects such as Chaos Theory and Complex Plane/Electron orbit/energy level predictions and things which cannot be determined no matter how hard we try. The answer is out there...2050...I don't think so. And with the way the US is going with low 4 year college entrants and high 2 year college (mechanics/plumbers/etc..) on the rise, I wouldn't count on the US being any sort of factor in the near future. If you want to respond, please say something intelligent and not pathetic/flame...Thanks

Re:Grand Unified Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

Spelling/communication...based on (semicolon/comma/period/etc) punctuation. Text. Paragraphs and full sentences. How many people really do this. Forgetting, question marks and overusing commas and Overcapitization. That's okay, it just makes reading some of these posts funny, but sad at the same time.

And please, get off your high horse. Buy a little bit of humility. Learn to write decent prose. If other posters don't understand (in your lofty opinion), then write something useful that helps people understand. That's what Slashdot is all about.

Disclaimer: I hadn't posted yet in this thread. I just didn't like your attitude.

Re:Grand Unified Theory

[Sheridan]

Alright, I am a Mathematics/Physics major at my college.

Congratulations. In a few years time when you graduate, you might even understand why the rest of your comment is such utter tripe.

All I want to know is "How many people actually understood what the article said...?"

Me, for one.

Oh, I see, only two of the hundreds of posters. That's okay, it just makes reading some of these posts funny, but sad at the same time. Alright, here's what the article is missing as far as linking Quantum theory with Standard theory. The link isn't impossible at all...If you have no clue what you are talking about.

I assume you mean "quantum gravity" and the "standard model". Reading the original article would have helped you here, I think. It is amazing that anybody with such and obvious lack of knowledge of particle theory could write the above comment about lack of knowledge being sad.

Has anybody here dealt with Chaos Theory and implications of the Riemmann Zeta function for starters. And I don't mean a search on Yahoo for a definition. Modern science cannot to this day even predict accurately, given all determinable factors what will happen during a reaction on an atomic scale. Quantum theory is based on Probalistic Physics, Relativistic or Standard Theory is based on Deterministic Physics.

The Standard Model is a fully quantum theory. Furthermore, just because a theory is probabilistic, it does not imply that it does not make precise predictions. In fact, the standard model is about the most rigorously tested theories out there (along with GR). It makes extremely accurate predictions of measurable quantities, and agrees with experiment to a phenomenal degree of accuracy. You obviously dont have a clue what you are talking about. (inanity about complex plane etc. snipped)

If you want to respond, please say something intelligent and not pathetic/flame...Thanks

Of course, you could help responders out in that by reading the article and posting something intelligent in the first place.
--
"I am not a nut-bag." -- Millroy the Magician

Re:Grand Unified Theory

[PG13]

Uhh no..

If I understand your post you seem to be claiming that by somehow understanding chaos we will understand the probablistic nature of quantum mechanics and be able to rectify it with classical mechanics.

However, quantum mechanical events don't just act random they ARE random. To assume otherwise is to invoke some sort of hidden veriable model (the decay of a radioactive isotope is not random but is determined by an incredibly complicated (chaotic?) process we don't understand). This theory was shown to be incompatible with the principle of casuality using the EPR paradox and bells inequaility.

Secondly from a purely pragmatic position we can abandon classical physics as just being an approximation...the difficulty is merely integrating gravity into quantum theory as I understand...it has nothing to do with needing to be non-probabilistic.

Re:Grand Unified Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

Like you're more able to field a guess than te Nobel laureate who wrote the article.

God, I hate college "majors". If you had the slightest idea how damned wet behind the ears you sound spouting all this crap off about various Chaotic Orbitals and Electrons(TM) you'd hide your head in shame. What you are learning in "collig" is the baby stuff.. the stuff that can be wrapped into a brown paper package and delivered to your door for spoon feeding.

Wait till you get to graduate school and get shamed the first time you spout off like you're the Doogie Howser wunderkind of the world in front of your professor.. it'll all become clear. I'm just softening the blow.

Re:Grand Unified Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

Ack, the white lab mice are back again.

Re:Grand Unified Theory

[Kinthelt]

However, quantum mechanical events don't just act random they ARE random. To assume otherwise is to invoke some sort of hidden veriable model (the decay of a radioactive isotope is not random but is determined by an incredibly complicated (chaotic?) process we don't understand). This theory was shown to be incompatible with the principle of casuality using the EPR paradox and bells inequaility As a mathematician, I find it disturbing that something can be random. Doesn't chaotic behaviour stem from the fact that small changes in initial conditions cause big changes later? If a particle acts random, it is probably being affected by other particles (read: ALL other particles). From gravity (if it has mass), magnetism (if it has charge), or whatever.

From what I can remember from high school physics, gravity and magnetic forces are inversely proportional to the distance between other particles. Since every particle in our universe has a location at an EXACT time, they all would be exerting forces upon each other. Albeit incredibly small forces. However, if you add them all up they would probably cause a small change in the expected behaviour any given particle.

Yes, yes. I know. I'm just waving my arms around. You may also claim that these forces would be "insignificant" or negligible. But remember, I'm a mathematician. There is no such thing as an insignificant number. ;)

Re:Grand Unified Theory

[daala]

Wait stop the press what a Grand Unified Theory by 2050 we should get this man working on it. I have been posting to the Slashdot community for awhile now and find the fellow posters here intelligent witty and insightful.

What a brain this man must posses. He can come in here and tell us all that we are all morons.

Buddy- Instead of writing such lofty "high-browed" thought provoking articles to us why don't you (in your divine benevolence) solve the whole of the Unified Theory for us.

It is interesting that you brought up the falling education standards in the United States it seems that YOU where able to slip through the cracks!

AND PS YES I UNDERSTOOD EVERY WORD OF THE ARTICLE YOU PRETENCIOUS BUFFOON

Again?

[mcolin]

Isn't it strange that the Grand Unified Theory is always "about 50 years away"? Maybe the GUT is creating it's own time paradoxon to just keep it's solution always 50 years in the future.

Re:VERY large underground accelerator, possibly ne

[Braveheart]

> one of the proposals that the lecturer showed us > for a future accelerator would be drilled by robots and would span one or two states

Your teacher was referring to the Superconducting Supercollider, a project which was killed off by
the US House of Representatives.
It was a big and exciting project at the time,
and AFAIK did drive forward developments in magnets.
See http://lepton.phys.washington.edu/~atlas/SSC/ssc_d eath.html



(One of the main drawbacks to European particle
physicists was that it was located in a dry county. Grin.)

The big effort is now going into LHC at CERN

John Hearns

Gravity as a constant power source

[Anonymous Coward]

There is already a device that uses gravity as a constant power source. It's called a mill-wheel.

Re:Gravity as a constant power source

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually it's water, so...:)

Re:Gravity as a constant power source

[Alphix]

Actually....what do you think makes that water move?

Nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't even WANT to read this stuff. If we can't predict what's going to happen in science 3 months from now, why pretend to know what we have in 50 years?

GUT and Cosmology

[foul]

Good article by a great scientist. I dont understand the fuzz from some people about his predictions. He seems cautious and humble when he talks about the outstanding questions and mysteries.

What surprises me tho from many GU-physicist is that forget to learn from cosmology. They tend to turn it around and look only to the Hi-energy experiments in order to answer the deepest cosmological questions. Analyzing the Relics of the Big Bang and the evolution of the early Universe however can supply constraints on the behaviour and existence of exotic states of matter.

Besides this, it is unclear what is meant by Unified physics. There are some suspicious aspects about the various GUT theories. For example, it might be unrealistic to suggest true Unified physics in the context of our experiences at low energies. Here, almost every decade of energy-interval from the mass of the electron to the mass of the Z-boson contains new particles. One might expect that even higher energies would open up new physical phenomena, and so on indefinitely. The prediction of GUT is that, instead, we encounter a desert of at least 12 powers of 10 in energy in which nothing interesting happens.
This would certainly be convenient, given that it is hard to see how the maximum energy of accelerators can affordably be increased much further. 2;-p

Re:GUT and Cosmology

[Anonymous Coward]

We have a comment above about how people should learn from cosmology. How about people learning from history. Putative theories of everything are nothing new in physics. There were a wave of them around 1900 when the idea was that all matter consisted of singularities in the ether. We had another round with the Kaluza-Klein stuff in the 1920s.
In retrospect it looks pretty foolish to have tried these tricks without knowing, in the first case any QM, and in the second case any QFT.
So what's so different this time round?
Let's get some, ANY, sort of verifiable predictions from Quantum Gravity work before we go off into flights of fantasy about how everything will just work out.

Ho Hum, M Theory again

[NewKitty]

I get really tired of hearing about strings, SUSY and M-theory. It's just so completely unscientific. Science is supposed to be about deducing the laws of Nature by being a really, really good experimentalist, noticing that some tiny effect in your experiment doesn't obey standard theory, and then having the courage of your convictions to say that your experiment is right and that standard theory is wrong. These ultra-theoretic stringy studies have produced nothing useful in any area of Physics (lots of lovely Mathematics though) and in terms of the quality of the Science they represent, they're right up there with pre-Renaissance alchemy and witchcraft. In some ways, String/M Theory is the ultimate 90s Science - it represents the triumph of marketing and spin-doctoring over achievement and utility.

Re:Ho Hum, M Theory again

[PG13]

This is just not true!!

Consider the two cases of special and general relativity, two of the most important theories and influential theories developed in physics. Yet both of them were developed ENTIERLY theoretically.

Special relativity was inspired entierly by thought experiment and the inconsitancy of maxwells equations with respect to moving observers. I believe Einstein claimed to have no knowledge of the Michelson-Morely Interferometer experiment at the time he discovered the theory.

The general theory of relativity then arose from the THEORETICAL issue that gravity was inconsistant with the principal of invariance of physical law under change of reference frame. There was the slight clue using the eccentricity of mercuries orbit but this was a minor factor.

What kind of model do you propose for research? Absurd amounts of money on accelerators to gather trillions of data points which don't mean anything to us as we have no theory to predict/explain them?

Besides Theory is cheap compared to experimentation.

Re:Ho Hum, M Theory again

[Anonymous Coward]

Furthermore, the math necessary (non Euclidean geometry) was developed previously and without any relation to physics research. Not an isolated case, either. ------------------------------------------ You can be either complete or consistent. I chose complete.

Re: Some antigrav devices

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people in history claimed to have produced antigrav devices (Thomas Bearden, Floyd's VTA or the Morley device), all of them use scalar waves transmiters, are based on the work of Nikola Tesla and seem to produce more output current than input (tapping gravity and converting it to something close to electricity).

If you have some time to kill, search for "VTA" or "vacuum triode amplifier" on any search engine, very interesting stuff ...

Grand Unified Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

It's here. NOW!!
Grand Unified Theory = it's all one thing.
and the answer is 42.

(R)evolution in science

[Edwin Oostra]

The basic problem with predictions about science, for the far future, is that a lot of people, make the mistake that science shows a slowly and gradual increase in knowledge. I believe that the author of the article, Weinberg, an extremely capable and knowledgebal physicist with a great reputation, also makes this mistake.

There are of course always long periods in science which are marked by a gradual increase in knowledge. But a lot of the turning points in science have been periods of turbulence for the science. Einstein's theory of relativity, which units gravity and elektromagnetism, was not something any scientist would have predicted in 1899. Quantummechanics basically grew out of a couple of pre-assumptions Bohr made, and when he made them, he hoped he would find more pleasing explanations for some of them later on. Older examples would include the discovery of oxygen, and the appearing of Newton's Principa, which replaced the Aristotelian way of looking at science in the western world.

Doing predictions about science 50 years ahead is a risky business, and I admire Weinberg's courage in doing it. But I think we should realize that it is still possible that we'll see another revolution and another theory, which will answer a lot of questions we are dealing with now, but such a theory would probably ask just as many new questions. This is basically what happened with Relativity and Quantummechanics. It would be naive and arrogant to assume we now know almost everything, and to rule out the possibility of yet another scientific revolution.

For those interested in science in general, and those interesting in philosophy and ideas about science in particular, the following books might provide interesting reading:
"Critisism and the growth of knowledge" I.Lakatos & A. Musgrave (1970) Cambridge
"The structure of scientific revolutions" T.S. Kuhn (1969) Chicago.

Edwin Oostra.

Re:(R)evolution in science

[Harukaze]

Considering the short, meaningless post that came before, I am surprised to find such a well-worded reply here. I am new here to Slashdot, so I do not yet know all the regulars, but I think you should write science book/article reviews. You seem to be able to look at the matter critcally without simply taking one side or the other. I look forward to seeing more of your posts. - Harukaze

Re:(R)evolution in science

[gh]

I agree with most of your post, but completely disagree with the fact that you and others are taking this as a strong prediction by Weinberg that it will happen in 2050 and then judging the article critically on those grounds. Weinberg actually states that there's strong chance it won't happen then or that it just may happen tomorrow or even later.

"There is a chance the work of unification will be completed by 2050, but about that we cannot be confident." (from end of third paragraph)

"It is impossible to say when these problems will be overcome. They may be solved in a preprint put out tomorrow by some young theorist. They may not be solved by 2050, or even 2150." (first paragraph under 'Recognizing the Answer)

The only glaring mistake I see Weinberg make is that he says that GUT will be the end of trying to get unified theory for the physical sciences.

Re:(R)evolution in science

[kkenn]

> The only glaring mistake I see Weinberg make is
> that he says that GUT will be the end of trying
> to get unified theory for the physical sciences.

He didn't even say this: from the last two paragraphs:

-------------------
The discovery of a unified theory that describes nature at all energies will put us in a position to answer the deepest questions of cosmology: Did the expanding cloud of galaxies we call the big bang have a beginning at a definite time in the past? Is our big bang just one episode in a much larger universe in which big and little bangs have been going on eternally? If so, do what we call the constants of nature or even the laws of nature vary from one bang to another?

This will not be the end of physics. It probably won't even help with some of the outstanding problems of today's physics, such as understanding turbulence and high-temperature superconductivity. But it will mark the end of a certain kind of physics: the search for a unified theory that entails all other facts of physical science.
-------------------

Unless you're misunderstanding what's meant by "unified". By definition, a theory which explains all four (or more, should these be discovered) fundamental forces in a single unified way, is a theory which, IN PRINCIPLE, could be used to explain everything else in science.

In practise, it's not possible to do this, in much the same way as current day quantum mechanics is incapable of giving many insights into, e.g. developmental biology (the difference in scales is simply too great and it would be impossible to solve the astronomically huge number of simultaneous equations). As Weinberg says, there will still be many many tough puzzles to solve, but at least we'll know it all rests on a firm foundation.

Re:(R)evolution in science

[techwatcher]

Glad you explained this so I needn't (-8 !

Re:(R)evolution in science

[sesquiped]

I certaintly agree with the idea that much (important) scientific is revolutionary rather than evolutionary, but I think that idea does not apply to this specific question. We have taken the two overall domains, the microscopic and the macroscopic, and described them with amazing accuracy. The general idea of a field theory has worked well to explain the electromagnetic force and the two nuclear forces. There is a lot of work being done on a field theory of gravity. It seems that all that's left to do is (beware of exagerated metaphor) extend the field theories and meet in the middle. While it's true that some amazing new theory might explain the macro- and microscopic in one simple theory, it is probably not too likely. Instead, the current theories will ocntinue to evolve until we have a basic framework that is compatible across all four forces (which will then be turned into one).

dark ages?

[Anonymous Coward]

hrmm.. well, that could just be the start of another darkage (had one before why not now?).However this isnt the issue.there is a point to be made and that the fact that you completly missed the bus. In southafrica in 1991 pple sed there was going to be a civil war with right wingers and the new government. didnt happen. or how about the cold war that melted away? anyway, man has a brain let him discover stuph because that directly effects our technology ,way of living and our health if it just had to stop for a moment man would back slide into another dark age, lets not have history repeat itself.

Physics the Microsoft way

[crivens]

Vapourware!! I'll believe it when I see it! Mind you, I read some of the articles and my brain couldn't handle it, and BOSDed on me. "For those with no sense of humour, this is a public joke announcement. Stop it!! This is far too silly!!!"

Fudge Factors

[fizzbin]

One way to describe physics theories is in terms of "fudge factors" -- constants, or numbers that are just "there". In current theories, those are things such as the masses of various particles. IMO, physicists try to tie different constants together through mathematics to minimize or eliminate outright constants that are just "there", without being explained by the theory. That's an oversimplification, but I hope that helps.

Re:Fudge Factors

[kkenn]

The hope is that when we finally meet the grand theory of everything, it will be completely unique - i.e. there will be no arbitrary fudge factors in the theory which have to be "put in by hand to make the numbers right".

This theory would (so the hope goes) be able to explain things like: why the subatomic particles have the masses they do, why does planck's constant have that value and not some other, why is the large-scale dimension of our spacetime 4, with lorentzian signature (i.e. one time dimension, not more than one), etc. String theory is currently the best candidate for something which might one day turn into such a beast.

Re:correct me if im wrong, and I AM wrong.

[plunge]

In the beggining.... everything was HOT. Also, everything was very very small. In fact, it's theorized that as much as 10kg of matter was all that was necessary to start off the universe. Now, when things get so very very hot, hotter than any star, it turns out that the four fundamental forces are actually all one force- unified field as it were. The reason we see them as four different forces is that when things cool off, these four forces seem to us to "cystalize" along certain set dimensions. So, as we try to theorize all the way back to the big bang (which isn't quite as hard as it sounds- we can actually still "see" it in every direction we look) we have to figure out how these forces work as one. Elcotromagnetism and the weak nuclear force were figured out- hence the electroweak theory. The strong nuclear force was added to the equation recently, but not as conclusively. And the farthest back, the hardest, the very first to crystilize off, is the incredibly weak (yet infinately ranged) gravity. This isn't the only way to look at the problem of course- we also don't have a good match for gravity as a wave vs. particle, or even still a good resolution bout wave vs. particle. But getting gravity into the equation is going to be very very hard without some really powerful testing equipment. When you're trying to measure gravity in the same proxitimity as the other forces, its effects are so small as to be almost invisible with current levels of experimental error.

I've heard this before

[Sorklin]

Matter of fact, I've heard this all the way through high school. Many physicist have said we are on the verge of a grand unified theory for most of my life. Now perhaps it will happen, but i'm not really holding my breath.

So much for the view from the peanut gallery.

Trying to find an article I read...

[sab39]

I read an article a year or so ago in one of those magazines (like SciAm or something... maybe even Time) about a guy who had a theory along these lines. His postulate was that in fact it was possible to *deduce* quantum mechanics from general relativity, if the restrictions were changed a bit. Nobody seemed to be able to do anything about this theory because it relied on mathematics that were far too complex.

As I recall, the explanation given was that if the restriction of strict causality were removed, then all of the "weird" counterintuitive behaviours of quantum physics could be explained by some state in the future affecting the present. For example, "tying", where two particles are linked and appear to have their outcomes linked together even though the information could not travel from one to the other without bypassing the speed of light, can be explained by postulating that the eventual outcome of the experiment on one particle affects the behaviour of the other particle *at the time they separate*.

He had some math that demonstrated that this theory was at least feasible, but doing accurate calculations was claimed to be beyond the math we are currently capable of.

Did anyone else read this article or know of the guy? This theory just sounded too perfectly elegant and intuitive to be wrong. I'd be interested in any information... has the theory been disproven, has any other progress been made on it, or has it just been substantially ignored? If anyone can give a URL to that story, I'd be interested to be able to re-read it, too.

Thanks,
Stuart.

What about the Observer?

[jpritikin]

All these theories are very nice but will they shed any light on the observer?

In Quantum Physics, the observation is what causes probability waves to collapse. Without observation, they don't collapse. It's like there is this gigantic mystery in the center of quantum physics and everyone seems to just tries to avoid it.

So what can we say about the observer? It has something to do with being alive. Dead people don't observe much (as far as we can tell :-). Also, while anything that can be an object of attention is not the observer, some observers seem able to resolve things more clearly than others. In other words, if you practice observation then you become a better observer, meaning you are able to pick up very subtle signals on your central nervous system. So where do good observers hang out?

All observers basically want two things. They want to observe beauty and they don't want to die. You'll find good observers at the top of any organization. But the best observers will probably spend a lot of time contemplating the mechanics of observation.

Re:What about the Observer?

[forthy]

The observer mystery is a common myth about QM, and comes from the problem to understand the wave-particle dualism. Things can show particle or wave behaviour, and when you force them to show particle behaviour, the wave function collapses.

What really does that is an "observation" device (like a CRT screen, or the fovia of the eye), not the "observer". You can put such a device anywhere in your experiment, and you can prove that it really does the same as any other "observer" does - reduce the accuracy of the measurement according to the uncertaincy relation.

For Schroedinger's cat that means, the alpha or beta particle is the "observer", because it already turns the possibility to radiate into a fact (and the scintillation counter does the rest).

Re:What about the Observer?

[jpritikin]

For Schroedinger's cat that means, the alpha or beta particle is the "observer", because it already turns the possibility to radiate into a fact (and the scintillation counter does the rest).

Well, sure, I'm not saying that human beings are the only observers in the universe. At least the scintillation counter is an observer in the case of Schroedinger's cat. What is interesting is that we *can* act as observers in the quantum sense. In other words, you *can* be the observer that collapses the wave-function.

The observer mystery is a common myth about QM, and comes from the problem to understand the wave-particle dualism. Things can show particle or wave behaviour, and when you force them to show particle behaviour, the wave function collapses.

Science is a matter of retreating from error. How do you know that a particular experiment will always have the same result? Science just gives us *theories*. How do you know the results of any experiment until you observe them? Strictly speaking, most of what we "know" are just theories. The rest are contradictions and tautologies.

randomness?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a question: as the complexity of a system aproaches infinity, is it truly random, effectivly random or just very very complex?

(This is not a flame but an actual question from a novice mathematician)

The Theory of Great Dissidence

[Ektanoor]

Ok I know that the analogy might not be very successful. But it is the most flagrant on how Science can be very very wrong.

Exactly at the beginning of this century two guys decided to take a great feat. To reform the foundations of Algebra. At that time Algebra had an History of a few thousands of years. However it suffered from serious internal problems. It was a building of small, nearly autoctonous mathematical ideas. Somehow they possessed a common linkage though several theoretical threads. However if we compared it to the body of Geometry, Algebra looked miserable.
Geometry had a very "perfect" building body. It started from a few simple rules and all demonstrations were generated from them. So in the beginning of this century two big minds tried to make the same in Algebra. Some sort of trying to build a Theory of Great Unification.
They went on this task no matter that, by that same time, Geometry had already broke into several Geometries. It was demonstrated the not only the theoretical consistence of "dissident" geometries but also the fact that some of them were much more "real" than the traditional Euclidian Geometry.
However there was still some stubbornes to consider Euclidian Geomtry a "right" geometry and the others "wrong".

The blow came right at the moment of the publication of a huge work that pretended to unify the whole Algebra into one body. And right from the inners of that same body. A logical inconsistence on one theorem gave a death blow to the whole theory. Years of hard work were turned into dust in a few lines.
As far as I know one of the mathematicians seemed to have quit after that. The other passed the rest of his life trying to repair a building that theoretically was impossible to restore.
This story ended with a miriad of Algebras. It reflected in every corner of Mathematics. In a few years the number of mathematical branches and theories skyrocketted. The culmination was Godel's theorem which "popularly" stated that "there will be always undemonstratable truths" and laid the foudations to the axiomatic nature of modern Mathematics.

Physics can be quite different from Mathematics. But we have already a good past experience on how such Unifications may end. There is only one problem. In the beginnings of the Christian era there were also some attempts to unify the branches of human knowledge. Many aspects of Geoncentrism and its interpretations were a clear reflection of this. And we know how this beautiful "Harmonia Mundii" ended. The names of Giordano Bruno, Galileo Galilei and Johannes Kepler are a testimony in the History of Science to what happens when someone tries to hold the Theories of the Great Unification

Re:The Theory of Great Dissidence

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, science can be very wrong, but no, I have to disagree with the example.
From the standpoint that the object of science is not to prove pet theories, but to increase knowledge, the debacle to which you refer was one of the best things that have happened to Mathematics.
If nothing else, it "created" Model Theory, among whose beautifull fruits is Godel's theorem.
-------------------------------------------------
You can be consistent or you can be complete.
I chose to be complete.

Theoretical Physics has it's uses.

[Edwin Oostra]

It is very easy to bash hard science as being a moneydrain and not giving anything to society. This is a nearsighted and biased view however. Of course a lot of money is spend on science and the immediate output is not always very useful. But, even though they are not instantaniously clear, science is important for more things than most people realize.

Let's start for instance with something most people on here are interested in: Computers. Microchips have been scaled down very far, a thing that could have not been done without the knowledge and understanding science has of quantummechanics. CD(rom)s use lasertechnology, et infinitum.

I do admit that it takes time, but usually when a new theory arrives, in time, someone will find useful applications for them. It's too easy to claim scientist should shut up. It's too easy to claim they don't deliver, if you don't look into how much theoretical knowledge is behind simple rules for people working in technology.

Edwin Oostra

Re:Theoretical Physics has it's uses.

[Harukaze]

As a candidate for a BA in Physics, I have to put in my support for this. In a seminar I took when I first arrived at college, one of the things we mentioned was how much money went into various governmental programs. Some examples were science research, education, military, etc. If I am remembering correctly (and if I am not, then forgive me; it has been well over a year since I was told this), then science was very very low on the list, whereas military was several times more costly than even the second-most expensive item listed. Science barely costs any money at all, when taken in to view with everything else the government wastes money on; who seriously thinks our Air Force needs a several billion dollar fighter jet it will never use?
Oh, and if it was not for our scientists hard at work to develop the atomic bomb (something many see as the symbol of all that can go wrong with science), then we would have been the ones to be hit with the atomic bomb, and Hitler would likely have won the war (would you stand up to the only power in the world to have a nuclear weapon, a power who is not affraid to use it?). No, I am not saying that it was a good thing we bombed and killed so many civilians (in fact I would prefer not to start that debate, since I myself despise the way in which that technology was used). My point is simply that science is important, no matter how you may think otherwise. Would you want to life in a Nazi state today?
Oh, and one last thing. If you are so eager for scientists to shut up, then why use a computer at all? To reitterate Edwin's statement, computers are one of the most obvious results of scientific research. If the scientists shut up, then they will have all the new computers, and maybe you might have an 8088 left all for yourself:)
- Harukaze

1900 physicists "knew" all the answers

[Anonymous Coward]

A hundred years ago physicists thought they knew all the answers. Just a few pesky things didn't fit in like black body radiation curves (quantum mechanics), asphalt stains on films (radiation), and the failure of the Michelson inferomentry experiment (relativity). Year 1999 physicists think they know all the answers too! We'll see.

There is a slight difference.

[Edwin Oostra]

Your point is well made, there is however a small difference between Physics and Mathematics. Godel's theorum applies to logical system strong enough to describe themselves, such as a languages and mathematics. What they say is in nuances different from how you popularized it:

Within any logical system that is strong enough to describe itself, logically inconsistent statements can be formed.

This is in language know as the "Lying Kretenzer" paradox. It means that in mathematics you can form the statement which is equal to "this sentence is untrue".

Tarski has done a lot of work on the dillema when it comes to language, in effect proving again that truth can be defined logically consistent again. Much of his 'tricks' could apply to Mathematics as well.

However interesting all this is, the whole point is void for Physics, because Physics, unlike Mathematics is not it's own meta-language. Godel's theorema may say something about consistency of mathematics, but it simply does not apply to Physics. I'm not saying there aren't any other objection that can be made, but this one does not apply to physics.

A good and clear book about Godel's theorema, which is reasonably accesable is:
"Godel, Esscher, Bach, An Eternal Golden Braid"
I must admit that the writer's name has slipped my mind.

Edwin Oostra

Re:There is a slight difference.

[renoX]

> A good and clear book about Godel's theorema, which is reasonably accesable is:
> "Godel, Esscher, Bach, An Eternal Golden Braid"
> I must admit that the writer's name has slipped my mind.

Douglas Hofstater(sp?).

I agree it is a good book, but it is not very easy to understand but I would say that it is not its fault: the Godel theorem is quite difficult to understand.

hmm

[DryGrain]

Given that in the 1800's we thought we would be living on the moon and eating a pill a day for vitamins and so on by now,(space hotels, living on mars, etc...) I wouldn't count too much on the estimate of 50 years. The article was really explanitory and I could kind of figure out some things it was talkign about. (obviously I am not scientist material eh? ;} ) The grand theroum; for those of you who don't know; is a law of the universe which supposedly ties in every law of physics and all laws of the universe together. A lot of people used to think it was impossible. 'Course, if you didn't know that, you wouldn't be reading slashdot now would ya? ;}

The time constant for impossible things

[forthy]

My father worked once in fusion research (the hot fusion one), that was back around 1970. While first, people though it won't take too long to make a working fusion power plant, they quickly raised the time estimation to "50 years", and that remained constant over the last 30 years (we are still 50 years off a working fusion power plant).

So if any physicist says to you "in 50 years", he means "I have no idea how to achieve that", or worse "According to all informations I have, the effort is doomed". For fusion, that means "There's an already burning fusion device just 8 light minutes southwest, try to make use of that energy source first".

I've some of my own ideas about how to "unify" forces, and I think the main reason why the visible efforts are doomed is that they don't want to abandon the incosistent old theories QM and GR, or any of their consequences. A new model must break predictions made by both of them, not try to merge two inconsistent theories in one framework. Well, anyone knows that all theories are wrong, and better theories are just better approximations, but still wrong. Thinking that one time one find the ultimative theory that represents the world by 100% is wishfull thinking.

We are already at a point where experimental difference to the current theories is difficult to come by, and most of the questions left are rather theoretical. When those theoretical questions are resolved, we may have a theory that - while still being wrong - predicts all observations with enough accuracy that no experiment can be thought of that will show the weak points. But I doubt that. This sort of thinking just prevents people to actually do and publish experiments that differ from theory. A scholastic physics that doesn't look out and do experiments to question theories isn't physics anymore.

This gives Math/Phys major's a bad name...

[Edwin Oostra]

I must say that I'm quite appalled by the apparent "I'm smarter then you are"-attitude of your mail. I, myself, am a theoretical physics major, who will be done, early next year.

If anything my study has taught me that unless you're actually doing research in a field, you know very little to nothing about it. So, you had a course about it, what those courses teach you are mainly the mathematical tools, used in such a field.

I've studied for 5 years now and learned a lot. I will never however claim that my opinion on a field I'm not directly active in, carries more weight than that of an interested layman. You don't have to ashamed of the fact that you are intelligent, I know I'm not. But assuming that noone else has a right of an opinion on physics matters is arrogant and presumptious.

As a theoretical physics major, I distanciate myself from Listen up's arrogant tone, and self-indulged message.

Edwin Oostra

In general, incredibly dumb repsonses here

[Anonymous Coward]

Skipping along the comments, its obvious 99% of you really have no idea what you're talking about, but wanted to chime in with some ridiculously bleak commentary regarding something you clearly don't understand.

Re:In general, incredibly dumb repsonses here

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. Whereas you were expecting an educated debate on advanced physics? I think you may have taken a wrong turning somewhere :)

Re:In general, incredibly dumb repsonses here

[daala]

Glad to see that you are making it consistent.

Unified theory got you down?

[walnut]

I used to be quite skeptical about unified theory, but then I read the Fabric Of Reality and I was just as lost, but even more interested.

It gives good justification to the thought that it is now impossible to know everything, however, it will be possible to understand everything... pretty freaking fascinating...

Hawking vs. Weinberg vs. Jam Master J

[evilj]

So, if Steven Hawking gives Unification a 50/50 chance in the next 20 years, you can see where Weinberg got the year 2050.

Luckily Hawking didn't say it would be a 50/50 chance in the next 21 years, or we'd have to wait until 2150, according to Weinberg.

Jam Master J

Saucy Spice Girls

Hmmm....

[DeadFish]

Is it me, or did someone at Scientific American read Greg Egan's Distress and get inspired to write this article?

Ketchup Viscosity

[DonkPunch]

Don't underestimate the importance of ketchup viscosity tests. They are essential for the advancement of condiment science. We also need to devote resources towards studying the relative tanginess of mustards. I personally make a tax-free contribution every year to the Mayo Clinic, since someone told me that this is their specialty.

These experiments are also very cost-effective. A friend and I were able to construct our own supercolliders in his driveway using Burger-King kethcup packets and bricks.

Perhaps someday, God willing, we may also clear up the whole "ketchup" vs. "catsup" controversy.

/* The funniest part of the post is knowing that somebody might to have to Meta-Moderate it without any context. They'll be saying, "What the fsck is he talking about?" */

You know

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sitting here and I still can't believe I followed that ....

Random GUT thoughts

[Skinwalker]

Conspicuously absent in Weinberg's essay is the enormous problem of quantizing the gravitational force, i.e. the Holy Grail of modern physics. Not even string theory answers this (although Ranmujan -style modular functions hold some promise, be it insanely difficult to deduce). Also, once the theory is proposed, it must be tested (duh!)... the mere thought of a Plank scale event occurring within even a few gigaparsecs of Earth scares the living daylights out of me. Wasn't it LaPlace who said "We have solved all the major problems in physics" around the (last) turn of the century (never mind that pesky blackbody radiation problem). This sounds suspiciously similar.

Re:Only a computer can devise a Grand Unified Theo

[entropy7]

But such a computer has been built. It's called the universe - oh wait - now this is starting to get really complex...

and remember the other theory (hitchhikers guide - I think) that says "Once the universe is completely understood it will vanish and be replaced by something even more weird"

have I not heard this somewhere before?

[morning]

Please don't forget that almost all predictions about when new theories and technologies will be availible are inaccurate. Remember the flying car that I was supposed to drive to school in today?

This guy is a dork

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupid People Shouldn't Breed

Great. Now we've got some idiotic math geek performing eugenic experiments like a modern day Hitler. Some math geek who's too stupid to know that two 'stupid people' can have intelligent offspring.

If you want to respond, please say something intelligent and not pathetic/flame

Now the idiot is telling us what we can and cannot say.

Please, Please never leave your sad little university so that you don't inflict any damage on the real world.

Need a collider bigger than milky way

[eries]

Unfortunately, in order to probe distances appropriate to proving or disproving string theory (at least directly) you'd need a collider that were roughly a billion billion times more powerful than our existing technology. You'd be lucky to fit one of those into the Milky Way.

Most of string theory is, as of yet, not experimentally testable. But it's pretty :)

hmmm I have a question

[Anonymous Coward]

How can dimensions be created since they are all curved together. For example if you travel one way long enough, you will then meet yourself. This shows that the dimensions are not cystralized seperatly but rather related and are 1.

I heard somehwere here at /. that time is just an illusion which is part of the time-space continium. Perhaps our ilusion of direction and space itself is warped.

from a physicist

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, I know something about this. I have a Ph.D. plus three years of postdoc'ing in experimental high energy particle physics. I worked at both Fermilab and CERN (1991-1995, guess what else was going on around there at that time?)

I left the field (and became a computer consultant) in despair at getting a chance to do interesting science. Okay, the real reason was that I didn't think I was going to be able to get a tenure-track faculty job. But these two reasons are connected: unpromising fields of study lose funding. My field is currently undergoing severe contractions.

The problem is that existing theories work well for all experiments and observations we know how to make, and building bigger accelerators costs too much money. The US cancelled the Superconducting Supercollider (SSC) in Texas. I can't say I blame US. Europe is going ahead with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, but they may or may not get anything out of it.

Weinberg is a respected theorist. The article is a good introduction to current theoretical fashions, and some of it was new to me. At the same time I was somewhat offended that he expects answers to come from a "young theorist".

Physics is an experimental science, and a theory is not validated until it has experimental evidence to back it up and to distinguish it from competing theories. It is the shortage of new experimental data over the last fifteen years that has left theorists grasping at thinner and thinner straws. Mathematical elegance in a theory does not validate it.

The evidence drought may continue to 2050 and beyond. I, personally, do not expect the LHC to turn up supersymmetric particles. And maybe not even a Higgs. If they are found, it does not necessarily select one theory over another. It certainly doesn't amount to evidence for string theory or M-theory. It's hard to think of any experiment that could validate those theories.

Recent evidence of neutrino oscillations is hopeful. But is it something that will help tie up all these theorietical loose ends? I don't think so. In fact, my friends who do theory are having an even harder time finding jobs (or interesting research topics) than I did as an experimentalist.

My 2 centimes. Michael

check back around 2050

[Anonymous Coward]

There is one thing we can be almost completely sure of regarding the year 2050: few scientists currently working on this problem will still be working on it then. And judging from Dr. Weinberg's photograph, he will certainly not be one of them. What he seems to be saying, therefore, is that he cannot solve this problem, but someone a couple of generations after him might solve it. And if they don't, I'm sure Slashdot will have an item pointing out that Weinberg was wrong. I'll be looking for it!

Your head ...

[Anonymous Coward]

needs to be examined. The U.S. now is at the peak of its power, by far the most significant and powerful political, cultural, and economic entity (in absolute terms) that world has ever seen. I would compare the U.S. today with the Roman empire at its peak. The U.S. is very restrained compared to what it could do if it desired. Come back in a thousand years, and the hordes may be riding down from Canada to take over, but not in the near future.

Re:Your head ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you compare the US today with the Roman empire at its peak, when you've already stated that you think there's no comparison, that the US is "by far the most significant and powerful political, cultural, and economic entity that world has ever seen"? Either ou think they're comparable or you think the gap isn't that far after all.

Re:Your head ...

[Luis Casillas]

Not quite. The modern industrial society, headed by the US and other industrial powers, has a far wider reach, and a potentially far more destructive impact upon the biosphere than anything the Romans could have imagined possible. Nukes, deforestation, pollution, etc.

The developmental model of contemporary Western society is simply not maintainable; it will fall apart.

---

Damn! I'll be dead!

[Anonymous Coward]

Crap! Can't they hurry up!?!? I'll be dead by then and I won't see it. This stuff always happens to me!

Superficial analogy

[homunq]

We really do know more about what we're talking about than back then.

It's like arguing about when Moore's law will end. Most reasonable people agree that at some point it will end. There are fundamental barriers where the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle meets Information Theory. Yes, that's "only according to the current paradigm of physics", but even supposing we could somehow overcome such a barrier, it would take a serious scientific revolution. It requires a very high degree of faith to assume that such a revolution will fit within the constraints of Moore's law - it would almost definitely be either too fast or too slow.

So, physics and CS are in the same boat. Both are riding a developmental process, unprecedented in history, that will eventually end. In both cases, human nature provides an inexhaustable store of unimaginative prophets to predict that the end is near. And in both cases, there is no fundamental barrier to valid prophesying. That means that not only will one of the prophets one day be right; they'll probably be right for most of the right reasons.

The question thus becomes: how do we separate the wise prognosticators from the deluded ones? If you can't answer that question for yourself, you need to work on your epistemology. Personally, I can see so many differences between Weinberg's argument and that of the turn-of-the-century end-of-science prognosticators - and not just differences of degree - that I feel confident giving him more credence. Moreover, I think that, posing the question as I have posed it, it would have been easy to see through the end-of-science claims last time the century turned, without any anachronistic knowledge of physice.

Note that Weinberg does not actually claim we'll have a TOE (theory of everything) by 2050, just that we'll have a GUT (grand unified theory). The difference is, a TOE would explain the fundamental physics of everything, whereas a GUT only covers everything that happens at energies of less then 10^18 GeV or so. Now, some physicists believe that these two are the same thing, and some don't. This is mostly an article of faith. Moreover, it's totally immaterial on a practical scale. As Weinberg explains, it would take an accelerator light-years long (and magnetic fields strong enough to rip apart normal matter) to begin to see the difference. With a GUT, for the first time in history we'd know everything there is to know about the fundamental physics of everything currently observable, and we could settle down and spend the next millenia or so working out the implications of that knowledge.

Re:VERY large underground accelerator, possibly ne

[Benley]

That's incorrect. I attended the same lectures at FNAL this spring, and what they were referring to is currently called the "dreamotron" because it is, frankly, a dream currently. The idea is to build a gigantic particle accelerator that touches the Fermilab site whose diameter extends approximately 100 miles northwest of the site.

Problems with this:
1) The current Tevatron accelerates to energies around 1.8 TeV (tera electron-volts). This dreamotron would require a "main injector" roughly three times the size of the tevatron to accelerate a hydrogen ion to the energies needed for a 100mile ring.
2) Obviously it would be somewhat difficult to dig underneath northern IL, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa in order to make this tunnel.

I am missing some information here because I don't have all of my notes on the subject... is anyone else more informed on this?

On Understanding: to the college student

[clearcache]

There's more to "understanding" than physics and math. You should try taking some philosophy courses and actually _hearing_ (not just listening to) the words of the brilliant men and women who had neither particle accelerators nor supercomputers to help them in their quest for a better understanding of the world. You might learn something - and become a better scientist at the same time.

Someone once said "The man who thinks he knows everything really knows nothing at all." This is a motto that I try to keep in the forefront of my mind everyday to keep me humble. I am a computer programmer and was sitting on the train skimming O'Reilly's "Advanced Perl Programming" just yesterday when another computer programmer sat down next to me and indignantly said "Do you think that book helps you at all?!?". My response was "Yes, greatly." His indignance showed me that, like you, he felt he already knew it all (how opposite to the Perl mindset can you get!). A closed mind sees only one path, but an open one knows no bounds. Everytime I read and re-read that book, I gain insight into different ways to attack problems. Everytime I read and re-read the words of Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Buddha, the Bible...the list is endless...I am reminded of my humility and the variety of ways there are to think about things. Hell, the Buddhists have had a "Grand Unified Theory" for thousands of years - they just have no need to quantify it! If your immediate reaction was "that can't compare to the GUT _I'm_ talking about", you're right, it can't compare. And it shouldn't.

If you feel that certain theories are written in stone and are -- without argument -- correct, you are doomed to only attack your problems from the perspective of those theories. Man, be a good scientist, and lose the blinders!

Also, as a recent college grad (3 years ago), bear in mind that I know very little for certain...one thing that I _learned_, however, is that what you are taught in college is one thing, and what actually happens can be a vastly different thing. Question the _assumptions_ that the theories you're learning in college are based upon (and there are always assumptions), and you'll find the holes in the theories.

This post is not a flame, nor is it intended to be condescending. I just hope it made you think.

Grand Unified Theory

[Maurice]

A GU Theory would have to describe the whole universe. And therefore it should explain the existance of humans and therefore deduce its own existance. Is it then at all possible to have such a theory? Deducing its own existance would break the incompleteness theorem and thus make the GUT incorrect.

Since when...

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when is "Profoundest" a word?

just great

[Anonymous Coward]

Im so happy that there will finally be a complete set of rules for all aspects of physics...but if they do succede at this then my whole freaking AP physics course was for naught!!!!!!!!!!!

The Problem As I See It

[Harukaze]

I have comparatively little understanding of Physics (especially when you look at who wrote the original article), so I likely don't know what I am talking about, but here is the problem with finding GUTs as I see it. So far, Gravity has truly refused to budge and allow itself to be combined with anything. Yes, it seems to fit with the EM force, but unlike EM, gravity has no none particle of transmition. Scientists have hunted for but found no such thing as a gravitron. Personally, I doubt they will; this particle must be able to penetrate any and every substance known to man, else we would be able to construct a permanent anti-gravity chamber with materials alone. Not even the more powerful (read: high frequency) EM waves/particles can do that, as far as I know.
Also, if I am not mistaken, EM, weak nuclear and strong nuclear forces have all been united, and all have particles of transmision. I don't pretend to understand that unificaton nor do I even know offhand what the weak and strong particles of transmission are.
From what I understand, in an Einsteinian (is that a word?) way of looking at things, gravity is caused by a depression in space-time. Think of matter as a marble on a thin, stretched surface. The greater the mass, the larger the marble. Large masses will make depressions in the surface, as there is nothing to support the stretched surface. When you have such a depression, other marbles, especially small nearby marbles, will roll towards the marble. Larger or further marbles don't feel the effect of the depression as much; far marbles are on a relatively 'flat' region, and large marbles are in a depression of their own (read: have a large mass and inertia) and are not likely to move towards another large marble. The closer those two marbles are, however, the better the likeliness of them falling together, as their depressions become closer until there is just one larger depression.
Okay, so my analogy is a bit hard to explain. If I had something to show you, I could do it much better than in words.
Light interacts and is affected by gravity because of these depressions in space-time. Consider light to be a very tiny, extremely fast moving marbles on the stretched sheet (a photon has an equivalent mass because of its speed... don't ask me to remember what it is, however; all I know is it's very tiny). As they roll past a depression at high speeds, they are indeed turned by the depression, but not drawn in either; their high speeds keep them right on going, in a very slightly bent path. Einstein theorized this, and it was proven during a solar eclipse back in the early 1920s or sooner, even (for some reason the year 1917 pops to mind, but that could be just a guess).
So now you might ask, where am I going with this? Well, my point is this: gravity, to the best of scientists knowledge, works differently than the other three fundemental forces of nature (should that be Forces, now that I think of it?) The other three work on enough of a related basis (particles of transmission and other things beyond my comprehension), and gravity, as far as we know, has nothing else related.
One last thing. Someone better at physics can perhaps answer this for me. What exactly defines a fundemental force? There is so much that we think we know, but who are we to say that these, and ONLY these, are the fundemental forces of nature? What if gravity is just different, and does not fall into place no matter what we do? And what if there is another force we're not aware of? As unlikely as it sounds, we cannot say we know anything. And that is why I do not believe we will see a GUT by 2050.

Appologies if the post was confusing or if I contained incorrect information. Like I said, I know comparatively very little about Physics, but I do "know" that we always think we know something, and hundreds of years down the row we find out, "Oh wait, we were wrong. This is what's really true." We can never say we know everything.
- Harukaze, a rambling moron:)

Scientific American Website

[Anonymous Coward]

I read the article. Good Story. Thirty minutes later, my firewall cried "Warning, attack in progress. Hull breach imminent. Dirverting power to shields," or some such. Investigation revealed Scientific American's website was pinging on port 3511(!). The nice people at SA checked their stuff (logs, set-up, firewall, hardware, etc.) Then went to their vendors. It seems as if DoubleClick (an advertising service provider) uses enterprise management traffic software called Global Dispatch. Gloal Dispatch attempts to send geographically relevant advertising to web surfers. To do so, it is claimed, Global Dispatch pings the IP address and measures latency. It then uses the latency values are used to determine the IP of the most responsive POP. The fact still remains that Scientific American undertook an activity characterized as an attack by our firewall software.