Surfer dude theory of everything from E8

Originally posted by Entreri
Surfer dude stuns physicists with theory of everything

I found this link when digg'ing - thought it was interesting enough to post

[edit on 15-11-2007 by Entreri]

[edit on 15-11-2007 by Entreri]

(fixed link)

[edit on 16-11-2007 by Jbird]

Good find!!

It looks like his paper has been submitted to the same place (Cornell University) where the Poincare Conjecture was submitted... a popular online peer review system (arXiv.org).

Slashdot is also running this story:
science.slashdot.org...

My brain is too out of the mathematics side of things to follow very far into the paper. I will say that the scientific/mathematic community will like this paper better than others since it bases both gravity and the standard model into the same theory and only the 3+1 basic dimensions.

If nothing else, he may take physics down a more practical road than Superstring theory.

I was just about to create a thread on this too. Since the OP is new I thought I would provide the direct link to the article - Surfer dude stuns physisists with theory of everthing

Great article though I must confess I don't fully understand all of the implications. I was most impressed with the picture E8 which reminds me of everything from a spider web to the Tibetan sand mandalas to crop circles to my childhood drawings with my spirograph. I loved those old spirograph drawings!

Just had to post a pic of this beauty!! E8:



Here is a pic of a Tibetan sand mandala which is often used to represent the Universe as well.



Crop circle


Even the Mayan calendar


Could these all somehow be related???

[edit on 16-11-2007 by CyberTruth]

Here's another photo link:

web.mit.edu...[/im]

...the calculation describing this structure, known as E8, would cover an area the size of Manhattan.

E8 (pronounced "E eight") is an example of a Lie (pronounced "Lee") group. Lie groups were invented by the 19th-century Norwegian mathematician Sophus Lie to study symmetry. Underlying any symmetrical object, such as a sphere, is a Lie group. Balls, cylinders or cones are familiar examples of symmetric three-dimensional objects.

Mathematicians study symmetries in higher dimensions. E8 has 248 dimensions.

The magnitude and nature of the E8 calculation invite comparison with the Human Genome Project. The human genome, which contains all the genetic information of a cell, is less than a gigabyte in size. The result of the E8 calculation, which contains all the information about E8 and its representations, is 60 gigabytes. This is enough to store 45 days of continuous music in MP3-format.

...and it fits on an iPod...

web.mit.edu...

The cost was having to run the calculation four times, plus the time to combine the answers. In the end the calculation took about 77 hours on the supercomputer

The goal is to describe all the possible representations of E8. These representations are extremely complicated, but mathematicians describe them in terms of basic building blocks. The new result is a complete list of these building blocks for the representations of E8, and a precise description of the relations between them, all encoded in a matrix with 205,263,363,600 entries.

aimath.org...

E8:
en.wikipedia.org...(mathematics)

Not total jargon for those into math, incorporates a lot of Platonic solid ideas, interesting theory...

Lie group:
en.wikipedia.org...

[edit on 16-11-2007 by anhinga]

I especially love the surfer dude's comment. Here he is trying to unlock the mathematical secret of the Universe and about life in general he concludes "being poor sucks". Well even I have figured out that Universal Secret.

Fascinating, and elegant model as well.

I get lost after the first paragraph when it comes to the mathematics, but here's a link to a pdf download of the paper submitted by the "surfer dude," Garrett Lisi.

An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything

reply to post by Entreri


The problem is - or so I am told - that it seems to be totally useless in terms of prediction: not a good sign for any theory...

I believe it was from the 'onion' notorious for spoofing stuff. Wouldn't sell the board just yet.

Originally posted by Vanitas
The problem is - or so I am told - that it seems to be totally useless in terms of prediction: not a good sign for any theory...

That's not the way I understand it, not that I really understand it, but according to the following from the op article:

Despite this unusual career path, his proposal is remarkable because, by the arcane standards of particle physics, it does not require highly complex mathematics.
Even better, it does not require more than one dimension of time and three of space, when some rival theories need ten or even more spatial dimensions and other bizarre concepts. And it may even be possible to test his theory, which predicts a host of new particles, perhaps even using the new Large Hadron Collider atom smasher that will go into action near Geneva next year.

Source | telegraph.co.uk | Surfer dude stuns physicists with theory of everything

Sounds like it predicts new particles to me.

Originally posted by jpm1602
I believe it was from the 'onion' notorious for spoofing stuff. Wouldn't sell the board just yet.

Nope, not the Onion, the "telegraph.co.uk."

I like what he says in his summation of the paper he presented to peer review:

Originally from the pdf document posted at An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything

If E8 theory is fully successful as a theory of everything, our universe is an exceptionally beautiful shape.

BTW, jpm1602, Red Green rocks!

[edit on 17-11-2007 by goosdawg]

Thanks Dawg, Uncle Red rocks. I needed a good holler back, been a rough couple weeks.
'are described by the curvature and action over a four dimensional base manifold'
De yup, completely need a new gasket for my mind after reading that!

[edit on 17-11-2007 by jpm1602]

reply to post by jpm1602


Possum Lodge, forever, my friend!

Proof that there's more a-boot "The Great White North," than just beer and back bacon, eh?

And even more solid proof that the universe is an "exceptionally beautiful shape."

I can only dream to know the mind of God, and his perfect gift to us. Thank you my friend.
Bow, your heads for the man's prayer, I am a man, but I can change, quando omni flunkus moritati.... ROFL
For the record, I really miss "Omni" magazine.

[edit on 17-11-2007 by jpm1602]

[edit on 17-11-2007 by jpm1602]

If I pretend that the physics can be ignored during the reading of the paper, you can see some of his assumptions and philosophies for this unified theory... and why he believes proof can be found through tests in the LHC.

arxiv.org...

There are also aspects of this theory that are poorly understood. The relationship between fermion generations and triality is suggested by the structure of E8 but is not perfectly clear... This relationship may also shed light on how and why nature has chosen a non-compact form, E IX, of E8. Currently, the symmetry breaking and action for the theory are chosen by hand to match the standard model | this needs a mathematical justification.

...

The theory proposed in this paper represents a comprehensive unification program, describing all fields of the standard model and gravity as parts of a uniquely beautiful mathematical structure. The principal bundle connection and its curvature describe how the E8 manifold twists and turns over spacetime, reproducing all known fields and dynamics through pure geometry. Some aspects of this theory are not yet completely understood, and until they are it should be treated with appropriate skepticism. However, the current match to the standard model and gravity is very good. Future work will either strengthen the correlation to known physics and produce successful predictions for the LHC, or the theory will encounter a fatal contradiction with nature. The lack of extraneous structures and free parameters ensures testable predictions, so it will either succeed or fail spectacularly. If E8 theory is fully successful as a theory of everything, our universe is an exceptionally beautiful shape.

Surfs up Dude! Howevever impobable. It is 'a theory' . But a cool one regardless.

I did a little more research. Here is a video that explains a bit more:



Also, wikipedia has filled up with a bit more info:

Here are the problems so far:

en.wikipedia.org...

Given today's status, Garrett's model does not naturally lead to a unification of the Standard Model interactions with gravity (he has to choose the action by hand that contains both; in his paper only one of possible ways of doing it is described, this being explained by Lisi himself), (a) it does not allow us to understand quantum gravity (since there's nothing said about quantization); (b) it does not explain the parameters in the SM (since there isn't yet a mechanism for symmetry breaking); (c) it does not explain the cosmological constant or its value (as said above, to claim there has to be one, it would be necessary to show there's no way to do it without one); (d) it does not explain the hierarchy problem (and I see no way to do so); (e)it does not explain why we live in a spacetime with 3 spatial and 1 timelike dimensions.

reply to post by Protector


Thanks for the video!

Besides it being a "Grand Unification Theory," I still don't have a clue what this all about when it gets to the particulars.

But it shore am purty.


reply to post by jpm1602


If I have to...

I guess...

One of these days I'm gonna order the videos...

"If the women don't find you handsome,
they should at least find you handy."

reply to post by Entreri


You may not realize - nor AGL yet - how significant this really is.

His geometry has 22-23 empty "holes" to be filled by yet undocumented

subatomic particles, just like Mendeleev's table was filled in....

The ultimate proof of this will be the harnessing of microgravity to

enable time-space travel...

I think He might be on it! Hope this hasnt been posted, but heres a lecture for ya...

www.youtube.com.../search/1/y-Gk_Ddhr0M

Someone get Michio Kaku on the phone!