Surfer-Physicist Garrett Lisi Offers Alternative to String Theory and Academia

By John Horgan | October 20, 2014 | Comments18

In 2007 Garrett Lisi was a 39-year-old physicist, unaffiliated with any institut
ion, toiling in obscurity on what he called An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Eve
rything, which could account for all of nature s forces. Over the next year he beca
me a celebrity, after The New Yorker, Outside, Discover and other publications d
escribed him as a rootless surfer and snowboarder whose unified theory intrigued
big shots like Lee Smolin. I first heard about Lisi from my friend and former c
olleague at Stevens Institute of Technology, physicist and philosopher, James We
atherall, who helped Lisi co-write an article about his theory for Scientific Am
erican. In the fall of 2008 I met Lisi at a party thrown for him in New York Cit
y by physicist and string critic Peter Woit. Lisi was refreshingly down to earth
, his ego utterly uninflated by all his fame. I was impressed not only by his th
eoretical ambition but also by his desire to help other researchers pursue non-t
raditional career paths. Lisi, who has settled down in Hawaii, agreed to answer
my questions about what he s been up to. (See also Lisi s website and my Further Read
ing links at the end of this post.)

Garrett Lisi says his "Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything" represents an

alternative to string theory, which has become "a postmodernist monstrosity, lum
bering forward on self-provided momentum without ever receiving the pruning from
experimental verification that physics demands."

Horgan: Do you ever regret all the attention you got back in 2008 for being the
physicist surfer dude (as British journalist Roger Highfield put it)?
Lisi: It was very, very strange. I was pretty happy with my life before 2008, sp
ending my time on physics and surfing. The most negative repercussion of the att
ention was that the physics I love got thrown into a black vs. white media machi
ne. My emphasis on proposing a new research direction and not a completed ToE (t
heory of everything) was ignored, and there were premature attacks, such as rock
climber proves surfer s theory can t work, and other foolishness. The attention was f
un, but bad for development of the theory, which had been building interest amon
g physicists before the media storm got ridiculous. Fortunately, things have cal
med down and I m happily back on my island, working on physics and surfing a bit.
Horgan: Can you give a brief description for non-physicists of your
Simple Theory of Everything ?

Exceptionally

Lisi: Brief? No, but I can give a description. The paper title was a pun based on
the principal geometric object of the theory, a wonderfully intricate and beauti
ful 248-dimensional mathematical structure, the largest simple exceptional Lie g
roup, named E8. The research direction proposed in that paper is called E8 theory
.
Our current best understanding of the universe consists of Einstein s theory of gr
avity and the Standard Model of quantum particle physics. Matter particles, call
ed fermions (electrons, neutrinos, quarks, etc.), and the Higgs particle interact
via electromagnetic, weak, and strong-force particles, called bosons. This model o
f spacetime and particles can be understood geometrically as different Lie group

s (pretty, smooth mathematical surfaces made from joining circles and hyperbola)
twisting over our four-dimensional spacetime. The fermions and Higgs also twist
around the Standard Model Lie groups, with twist numbers equal to their electri
c, weak, strong, and gravitational charges. This very successful model, well est
ablished by experiment, was largely completed by the early 1970s. It is a wonder
ful geometric description of our universe but it s a mess.
In the mid 1970s, physicists figured out that the three non-gravitational forces
could be nicely combined as parts of one larger Lie group, with matter particle
s twisting around it, forming a Grand Unified Theory (GUT). This was a big step
in explaining the Standard Model as part of something larger, but it s not a compl
ete picture. What I found in 2007, by extending this work, is that the gravitati
onal Lie group, fermions, and Higgs can also be combined, forming parts of just
one Lie group, E8, twisting over spacetime. All the known elementary particles,
each with different charges and interactions, match parts of what many consider
to be the most beautiful structure in mathematics. The fact that this unificatio
n works so well is, I think, beyond coincidence. But it does have a big problem.
The parts of E8 which one might hope would correspond to the second and third g
enerations of fermions (muons, strange and charm quarks, etc.) don t have the righ
t charges. They re horribly wrong, even their spins. Until this gets figured out,
the theory is incomplete. But so much of E8 theory works I think it has a shot at
becoming the ToE.
Horgan: Have you made any progress in the theory lately?
Lisi: Yes, I think I ve got a line on it. I have two papers in preparation, but ca
n tip my hand a little. There s an unusual description of spacetime called Cartan g
eometry that s very interesting. You start with a single ten-dimensional Lie group
(a rigid geometric surface) and let it deform along four directions. The resulti
ng structure is our four-dimensional spacetime with the six-dimensional gravitat
ional Lie group twisting over it. It is a very efficient model. A year ago I wor
ked out a generalization of Cartan geometry, allowing spacetime to embed in larg
er Lie groups. When I do this for E8, there s a symmetry called triality linking thr
ee different sheets of spacetime; with respect to each different sheet, each of
the three different generations of fermions comes out right. If this all works,
it would mean the reason we see Lie groups everywhere in physics is because we re
inside of one, looking out. Our universe and everything in it might be excitatio
ns of a single Lie group.
Horgan: Edward Witten, when I asked him in a recent Q&A if string theory had any
serious rivals for a unified theory, replied, There are not any interesting comp
eting suggestions. Comment?
Lisi: That stings a little. I don t imagine other physicists working on fundamenta
l non-string theories appreciate it either. Ed Witten has done incredibly impres
sive work, opening new doors with his insights in mathematics and physics. His p
apers are things of beauty. He, his students, and his colleagues have dominated
the high-energy theoretical physics community with string models for decades now
. However, even the most enlightened foresight from the most brilliant mind can
be wrong, so it would be better if he wasn t a dick about it.
And how are things going with string theory? The promises and hopes from the 198
0s have not worked out. They thought they d find the right Calabi-Yau manifold and
the fermion multiplets and masses would pop out and they d have the whole thing w
rapped up before lunch. But that didn t happen. String models grew increasingly co
mplicated. And with every fanciful step they made away from the Standard Model,
the more likely they were to be wrong; they were mesmerized by their own mathema
tical constructions, which kept them busy but were much more complex than the St
andard Model they were trying to explain. String theory became a postmodernist m
onstrosity, lumbering forward on self-provided momentum without ever receiving t

he pruning from experimental verification that physics demands. The closest thin
g to a physical prediction that string theory has ever produced is that there sh
ould be superparticles, but these have not shown up. String theory models lost c
onnection to the physical world. Other physicists and mathematicians were left w
ondering if string theorists had joined some sort of cult. I escaped to Maui to
get away from the train wreck.
There are many Loop-Quantum-Gravity researchers who have attempted to extend spi
n networks, spin foams, and spin connection fields in general to describe the St
andard Model or parts of it. A few examples: Bilson-Thompson, He, Wan, Schiller,
(with their braid models and preons), Alexander, Nesti, Percacci, (graviweak un
ification), and several others. There are also some outlandish non-stringy but g
eometric unification approaches in various stages of development, such as Weinst
ein and his Geometric Unity, myself and E8 Theory, etc. There s also the noncommut
ative geometry program, which is not inherently stringy, and several unification
models based on condensed matter physics, such as spin condensates, superfluids
, and even Wolfram with cellular automata. There re also people working on quantiz
ing gravity more directly, with some promising findings for asymptotic safety, wit
h the Standard Model and gravity possibly consistent up to very high energies wi
th only slight modification. And there are many researchers working even more cl
osely to the Standard Model, without strings, trying to find geometric explanati
ons for the structure of the fermion masses, which would certainly speak to unif
ication. There are also fundamental issues that string theory doesn t address, suc
h as an explanation for quantum mechanics itself, which only brave outliers such
as t Hooft have worked on. So, there are MANY interesting fundamental theories i
n active development, bearing on unification, that have nothing to do with strin
gs. Of course, since string theory has become a huge toolkit and not a unified p
article model, you can use it to describe all these things with enough effort, b
ut since string models are more complicated than what they explain, there s no rea
son to think nature works that way.

Lisi (third from right) and friends at the "Pacific Science Institute," a cluste
r of cabins that he built on Maui to provide a place for scientists to "work and
play." Lisi adds, "I do have to let students know I am not a degree-granting in
stitution, but they're welcome to visit."

Horgan: In 2009, you bet Frank Wilczek that super-symmetric particles would not
be detected by July 2015. Are you confident you ll win this bet?
Lisi: I respect and admire Frank Wilczek a great deal. He s done brilliant work, h
as a wonderful sense of humor, and he s also just plain kind. While he was giving
a lively conference talk, he expressed an unusual confidence in the existence of
superparticles. His main reasoning was that superparticles would help the force
s combine in a Grand Unified Theory, with the forces having the same strengths a
t tiny distances, becoming part of just one force. And he likes superparticles f
or other reasons, including that string theorists need them to exist. But I knew
, from a review paper on renormalization, that you could get a similar unificati
on result from having a bunch of Higgs particles and no superparticles. So, I wa
s a bit of a punk at the end of his talk and challenged Frank to a bet on whethe
r superparticles would be discovered. He accepted, and chose the date and amount
(July 8, 2015, $1K). We both figured the Large Hadron Collider would have colle
cted plenty of data by then. But things at the LHC didn t go entirely smoothly. We

did get a good run at 7 TeV, discovering the Higgs particle (which was fantasti
c) and, much to the disappointment of many physicists who aren t me, no superparti
cles. And it now looks like our bet will come due before the LHC is able to coll
ect much data from its run at 13 TeV in 2015. So, yes, I m very likely to win. And
if Frank would like to place another bet with a date further out, I d be happy to
do that. I don t think superparticles exist, and I hope many physicists, if they
don t like losing their money and their time, will re-consider non-stringy unified
theories.
Horgan: Do you ever worry that the quest for a unified theory will turn out to b
e a dead end?
Lisi: Einstein s description of gravity and spacetime as a curving four-dimensiona
l geometry is so elegant and experimentally successful that it has to be essenti
ally true. The Standard Model of particle physics is similarly successful, but n
ot elegant, and doesn t mesh easily with Einstein s theory. But everything has to wo
rk together somehow. The universe is just one thing it s right there in the name. An
d it does feel like most of the puzzle is filling in; we re getting closer. String
theory may have been a wrong turn. Maybe if we try understanding physics using
deforming Lie groups and representation theory, we ll have this wrapped up before
lunch.
Horgan: Do you ever regret your non-traditional career path?
Lisi: I do miss universities. But I spend most of my time surfing, hiking, kites
urfing, and paragliding around Maui, working on physics and other projects when
I like. Friends and students visit and talk, and I take them out to play on this
beautiful island. Life isn t so bad.
Horgan: Is your passion for surfing and other sports in any way connected to you
r passion for physics?
Lisi: I don t know maybe. I m half English and half Italian, so I m very passionate, but
I suppress it.
Horgan: If young physicists ask you about the risks and benefits of a path like
yours, what do you tell them?
Lisi: I m a weird data point they should probably throw out. There was no path whe
re I went. I do have to let students know I am not a degree-granting institution
, but they re welcome to visit. In general, I advise people to do what they love,
and what interests them even if it s string theory.
Horgan: Can you describe and give an update of your proposal to create a network
of science hostels?
Lisi: Twenty years ago, research scientists were anchored to academic libraries
and laboratories. The internet has now set them free. Where can they go? What is
an ideal theoretical research environment? I think we need something like artis
t retreats, but for scientists. While working on physics, I spent a decade visit
ing friends vacation homes in nice locations, and group-living communities, and I
think a network of such places Science Hostels would be a great resource for scient
ists and science-friendly creatives. One year ago I bought a small ranch house w
ith a nice view here on Maui and built three guest cabins with a friend of mine
(who likes beer, pizza, and nail guns a little too much). We named it the Pacifi
c Science Institute, and over the past eight months we ve had about twenty visitor
s come through and stay with us, for free, for a few days to a few months, to wo
rk and play. It s been great! A nice house in a beautiful location, populated by s
electively social science geeks, makes for a pretty ideal living and working env
ironment. It s the flagship Science Hostel. We also own a larger piece of land her

e on Maui, maybe for PSI 2.

Thank you very much for your interest. Sorry for the length. I guess I had a lot
to say.
Further Reading: See my recent Q&As with physicists George Ellis, Carlo Rovelli
and Edward Witten.

John HorganAbout the Author: Every week, hockey-playing science writer John Horg
an takes a puckish, provocative look at breaking science. A teacher at Stevens I
nstitute of Technology, Horgan is the author of four books, including The End of
Science (Addison Wesley, 1996) and The End of War (McSweeney's, 2012). Follow o
n Twitter @Horganism.
More
The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Sci
entific American.
Tags: physics, string theory
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1. cshbar
7:44 am 10/21/2014
It s disappointing to see Scientific American stoop to such uninformed promotion of
outright psuedoscience. It has been known for many years that there is no embedd
ing of the standard model into E8 (http://arxiv.org/abs/0905.2658). This is a ma
thematical, group-theoretical fact, which Garrett Lisi has made a career out of
obscuring. His would-be theory is also precisely the kind of word-level-idea tha
t is ruled out by the no-go theorem of Coleman and Mandula. It would be another
story if Lisi actually could find a way to deform the standard logic of group th
eory as it appears in particle physics without sharply contradicting quantum mec
hanics or relativity, i.e. without blatantly contradicting experiment. Nobody ha
s any idea how to do that, so a demonstration of such a consistent deformation w
ould actually merit this kind of attention. But since Lisi hasn t done that, the i
dea is entirely without substance and entirely unworthy of this kind of promotio
n.
I am also mystified by the complete inability of either of you to understand wha
t standards that matter in theoretical physics. The fact is that any serious can
didate for a theory of everything had better be able to prove that at sufficient
ly low energies it reduces to standard quantum field theory (with gauge forces,
scalars and fermions) coupled to Einstein gravity. This is a sharply posed mathe
matical property that is non-negotiable: if you do not have this property then y
ou do not have a candidate unified theory of physics. Maybe you can claim you wo

rk on something that you _hope_ to have this property one day, but until you do,
you really don t have grounds to complain that your theory isn t getting its due. Bes
ides this obvious requirement to reproduce known physical frameworks, a theory o
f everything also has to be self-consistent. For one thing, it should exhibit th
e holographic property, one of the few clear implications of quantum gravity. In
both of these categories, string theory is the only candidate that has met thes
e requirements. If you re motivated to do better, then really best of luck to you,
but stop these ridiculous pretentions that Witten is being a dick just because he s
assessing your idea by the standards that really matter.
Link to this
2. mabundis
11:49 am 10/21/2014
My understanding is that Lisi has never published his concepts for peer review a
nd I have two papers in preparation doesn t really tell me much. Does he even presen
t at conferences? Another alternative ToE physicist Nassim Harriman has written pe
er reviewed papers, no? But then he doesn t seem to garner the same attention that
Lisi does. I find this puzzling. When will you be interviewing him?
Link to this
3. JohnDuffield
3:18 pm 10/21/2014
Interesting reading. I was struck by lost connection to the physical world , and no
ticed trying to find geometric explanations for the structure of the fermion mass
es . IMHO physicists focus on the electron taking a tip from TQFT, and appreciate
that there s a photon self-interaction that yields a bispinor trivial knot at 4pn/
vc. The n has the right dimensionality but a value of 1. Amazingly, Witten abando
ned this stuff, and whilst Atiyah knows about it, he s old now. Take a look at htt
p://www.math.ist.utl.pt/~rpicken/tqft/. See those blue trefoil knots at the top?
Pick one, start at the bottom left, and trace around it anticlockwise calling o
ut the crossing-over directions: up down up. Smash this thing, and you won t be se
eing any free quarks any time soon. Only it was Frank Wilczek who get a Nobel fo
r asymptotic freedom. Small world.
Link to this
4. AndrewFrancisOliver
3:23 pm 10/21/2014
First of all Church s Thesis and Hilbert s heuristics of axiomatics mean that one ne
eds at least two forces based on incompatible dimensional characterics to build
any universe that could Synge and Griffith s anthropic principle contain life as w
e know it
Therefore if as Norman Feather hypothesized packets (particles) move as waves an
d interact at points, what is string theory all about? Stability of solid system
s ????
Solids and supercooled liquid semisolid structures manifest themselves as variou
s phenomena and we observe such. The problems often relate to the dimensionality
of the enclosing Euclidian space to the embedded tensor-spaces
if dense real th
ree space be embedded in four dimensional algebraic hyperspace attached to a rat
ional divisible inferable but not observable arrow of time dimension according t
o Hilbert s hyperseparability of hyperspace principle credited where credit is due
given that algebraic space not continuous nor complete Simmons / Hilbert the qu
estion remains as to how many of Hilbert s Problems as announced 1900 remain to be
solved ????
Link to this
5. Andrei Kirilyuk
4:11 pm 10/22/2014
In this kind of world proposing ANY alternative

to the mainstream science, its o

rganisation, or anything else

is absolutely senseless, irrespective of the quali
ty of alternatives and the mainstream. The majority (in science and society) nev
er wants to seriously change anything any more because its absolutely dominating
material needs are already quasi-completely satisfied (including huge excesses
in the developed countries). Exclusions are excluded by the majority dictatorshi
p (called democracy).
The only way to succeed with any alternative starting from that magic point is t
o pass to an alternative universe. By a strange coincidence, they have the incre
asing flux of film fantasies about it last time Would you like to discover the re
al, qualitative alternative to everything?
Link to this
6. Luckylife
7:34 pm 10/22/2014
I think that it is far more relevant to begin to exclude gravity from quantum ca
lculation in much the same way that the Strong Nuclear Force is excluded from ma
cro-calculations of gravitational attraction.
When the Strong, Weak and Electro-magnetic forces are compared to gravity they a
re rated. Strong force 10^39 greater, Weak 10^32 greater, Electro 10^36 greater.
This is a result of macro-physics being mathematically compared to sub-atomic f
orces, not an actual sub-atomic measurement of gravity. Thus far gravity is not
described by the Standard Model. But if you question why the Strong Nuclear Forc
e is not a part of the calculation of an ordinary objects weight you will be tol
d in no uncertain terms that beyond a specific atomic length, the Strong Force i
s not felt on ordinary, neutral matter and thus no longer has a part to play in
the real world. With that terminology in place should we not theorise when we en
ter the Quantum realm, that Gravity has so diminuished an effect as to be disreg
arded? To further compartmentalise Gravity: there must surely be a minimum dual
mass or twin aggregate of particles that begin to exhibit mutual attraction but
below that mass threshold Gravity has no effect and no relevance or value. It co
uld be deci-grams to pico-grams before the minimum weights are reached and matte
r would be ignorant of its partner
but reach it, I m sure we would.
A method of finding this minimum dual mass would require a zero-G laboratory bec
ause any Earth bound experiment will be compounded by the 5.9721910^24 kg mass be
neath us. That this might help with the detection of a Force Carrier is unlikely
, there is already an argument that Gravity is an emergent phenomenon from the t
hermodynamic concept of entropy.
Link to this
7. AndrewFrancisOliver
9:05 pm 10/22/2014
There are those who think the weak nuclear decay force is not only non-local but
also incorporates genuine randomness a real mystery in a universe where as Eins
tein says God does not play dice!
That some interconnectedness between the strong weak and electromagnetic forces
at a deep computational nature of reality level raises the distinctions between
the Aitken s The Logic Of Commands digital command packets that rule the universal
computer via the trees of life tripole waste recycling aspect of solutions to t
he Hypergeometric Transform analogue subsystems approach to the life forces plan
et existence hypothesis in the solution space of The Biology Of Galaxies problem
in 1930's speculative science fiction of when will the green men come to save u
s or the red devils come to subjugate us Terror Keep debate
Link to this
8. Andrei Kirilyuk
2:35 pm 10/23/2014
Contrary to Lisi s scientific alternative as such (which is but another nonsense o

f mathematical reality kind, the same as for the string theory), his alternative w
ay of doing and organising science is interesting and rich in further developmen
t perspectives. On this way the quest for new knowledge, however complicated it ma
y be, is densely involved with usual life , or life (individual and social) in gene
ral, instead of being separated from it by impenetrable walls of conventional bu
reaucratic establishment. Correspondingly, in the first case we have the driving
sincere motivation for finding the new (ever deeper) truth, while in the second
case (now absolutely dominating) this announced purpose is tacitly but definite
ly replaced by purely subjective, fruitless technical games driven by selfish am
bitions and top positions in the establishment (determined by themselves). It s even
surprising how quickly the externally triumphant science has degraded from basi
cally the first, original case (untill the new physics advent at the beginning of
the 20th century) to the worst version of the second case (modern industrial scien
ce practice). Hence the end of science , inevitably
That true, living science practice of the first kind can and should, of course, be
further amplified by various practical and interdisciplinary connections within
the same kind of self-organised , dynamically changing structure. But this would n
eed the decisive change of mind of so many key players , now totally consumed by the
evidently fruitless and self-destructive second kind of science organisation In t
he meanwhile, those dissident efforts outside of the system give rather the impres
sion of a minor retreat, or sanctuary , for what should normally constitute the bas
is for the healthy mainstream knowledge progress
We could transform the end into the new beginning by returning from the second,
parasitic, to the first, original and genuine way of doing science. Only the mot
ivation (potential energy) is missing, as usually.
Link to this
9. AndrewFrancisOliver
7:35 pm 10/23/2014
p196 Methods of Mathematical Physics II C & H 1962 Since the wave equation does n
ot contain dispersion terms, we can construct the rotationally symmetric wave
Deconstructing the English grammar with a view to reconstructing the original in
tuitive German grammar concepts, one finds that summing series of terms in terms
of Euclidian three linear dimensionality might perhaps lead to a few pathologic
al space filling curves existing which if imposed on a particular summation of s
eries problem might hit the Kummer Jenson Tests conundrum of series proving conv
ergent or divergent dependent on rather irrational criteria to do with the teles
copic and periscopic approaches to organizing the selection choice sequences and
deferring summations of excluded series into error bounded error terms irreleva
ncies leading to that irrationalist Niels Bohr boasts at dinner that does not co
mpute !!!!
Therefore, using a three space adjusted to the centre of mass of the entire obse
rvable universe rotating frame of reference or not as the case may be and furthe
rmore using spherical spatial coordinates too might perchance lead to better con
vergence criteria given the plausible existence of the right sort of multi value
d normed measure dense real three space of full rotational freedom locally and g
lobally via forcing principles utilizing Courant s fractional integral integration
adjoint smooth operators of partial integral dimensionality to one third one fi
fth one seventh one eleventh and one thirteenth plausible given Riemann s results
on Riemannian manifolds and Riemann s Hypothesis that such dense real three spaces
might be forced into existence by God precomputing a table of the real unit bal
l to wit the observable universe itself fourteen billion years ago
Link to this
10. AndrewFrancisOliver
8:38 pm 10/23/2014

pp339-340 Differetnial and Integral Calculus II R. Courant 1936 English Ed.

7. Differentiation and Integration to Fractional Order. Abel s Integral Equation.
paraphrasing]

Using our knowledge of the gamma function, we shall now carry out a simple proce
ss of generalization of the concepts of differentiation and integration.
If D symbolically denotes the operator in differentiation and D-1 denotes the in
tegral operator which is the inverse of differentiation, we may write
But it is now very natural to contruct a definition for the operator D-lambda ev
en when the positive number lambda is not necessarily an integer.
The following worked examples suggest that this generalization works naturally f
or rational fractional lambda!
If the dense real three space which exist by reason of the vector cross product
and dot product operators being adjoint operators that allow interiority adjoint
ments to linear and planar subspaces into the dense three space and hyperspatial
extensions with rotational freedoms exist by reason of interiority adjointments
of subspaces to the hyperspatial extension by adjoint operators D D-1/2 D-1/3 D
-1/5 D-1/7 D-1/11 and D-1/13 proven by this argument to be coherent smooth opera
tors leading to complex space being generalizable into quaternion space into Cay
ley number eight space into sorta s p d f g h sorta 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 and 128
dimensional spaces leading to space filling packing of functional heat displacem
ent recycling curves into atomic nuclei and atomic electronic shells
Doubt. What about neutron star sized atomic nuclei held together by nucleonic bo
nding strong force ??
Doubt. Do the eightfold way groups get computed through matrix algebras of stand
ing waves in these telescopic exponentally dimensionality monotone 2 spaces of d
oubling dimensionality matrix simulations of rational adjoint e pi field extensi
ons over the rationals ????
Link to this
11. brodix
8:53 pm 10/24/2014
What about gravity as more of a composite effect, than a force in its own right?
When energy is released from mass, mechanical, chemical, nuclear, the result is
pressure, so wouldn t the effect of energy coalescing into mass in the first place
, result in some residual form of vacuum effect, as much of the energy is radiat
ed away in overall feedback loops?
That would explain why it is best modeled as a form of cosmic curvature and no q
uantized properties are detected.
As for spacetime being so elegant that it must be true, we are left with blockti
me and no explanation for why it is asymmetric. Epicycles were pretty mathematic
ally elegant, given we are the center of our view of the universe, but they neve
r did find those cosmic gearwheels.
My thought on time is that we only experience it as a sequence of events and so
think of it as the present moving from past to future, which physics codifies as
measures of duration, while the underlaying reality is this is is change of wha
t physically exist, ie. is present, which forms and dissolves these events, thus
turning them from future potential, to present actual, to past residual. Durati
on doesn t transcend this point of the present, but is the state of what is present
during and between events.
Basically with time we are measuring frequency, just as with temperature, we mea
sure cumulative amplitude. There is no universal clock, because it is just that
composite effect of multitudes of changes. Faster clocks only age/burn quicker a

nd so fade into the past that much faster.

Link to this
12. AndrewFrancisOliver
6:29 am 10/27/2014
Dear brodix,
I see you refer to Martin Knudsen s kinetic theory of gases
I m afraid those who put
Hilbert and Courant on their bookshelves do not so place Knudsen because severa
l academic chemists who didn t really like their departments receiving not two mar
ks nor two pfennigs of government funding yeah wouldn t even take student loan sub
sidies rather escalate the call-in of the bequests got caught out watching Freque
ncy as you would see it what used to be referred to as building glass time radios
having looted the septodes and pentodes and diodes and inductive coils and resi
stances and so on from stores yet knew so little of real agenda politics that th
ey didn t know how to tell who they were talking to obviously lefty dumbing-down b
ook-hating scum speaking perfect High German in aristocratic tone
We heard all ab
out that the other end had tone-of-voice band-pass filtering!
Of course the physical chemists and inorganic chemists knew their stuff on the f
acts of super-cooled fluids
don t doubt that!
As to Hilbert s problems the reason for twenty three ????
It were Hilbert s belief that the ferro-magnetic force was even more interesting t
han the forces above it.
That the ferro-magnetic force is linked to the electromagnetic force and the wea
k nuclear decay and strong nuclear binding forces seems incontrovertible
that s li
ke saying nothing
The hypotheses was that the ferro-magnetic realm possibly existed from Scandium
54 to Zinc 64 and plausibly because there was a nucleonic singularity particle i
n addition to the particles subject to Fermi-Dirac stats and those subject to Bo
se-Einstein stats
it had to do with the approximate values of the atomic masses
and the fission fusion potential energy well around the element Iron 56.
If that be so, then Church s Thesis proves that the force of gravity can t be unifie
d with these other forces because of the anthropic principle
Take Hilbert s fourth problem. If this universe be fully embedded or not in counta
ble Euclidian space, algebraic or real Could be reinterpreted, in the light of r
ecent discoveries, as:Name the last surviving Engineer with a Doctorate of Science in Computer Science b
ackup tape technologies applications of tape sorting algorithms in the universe a
bove the universe the last sane life forces planet on a planet in the universe t
hat got big crunched before our universe opened up ? Jehovah? Thor? Janet? Roger
?
Mutatis mutandis. I think U.S. Census Hollerith punch card sorting was the lates
t technological gizmo in 1900
Further, the essential differences between tripole decays and the much rarer qua
dpole decays
to do with equations where there is an input feed and several level
s of waste recycling displaced waste streams
Having stated my interpretations of those events, I hypothesize further that gra
vity will never be unified with the quantum forces because it s a different kind o
f force than the others
Schrodinger suggested there might be a cosmological cons

tant to balance eventually the observed red shifts of distant galaxies

perhaps l
ike Sterling s formulae there s a series of cosmological constant terms of growing i
nfinitesimality ????
Andrew Oliver
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13. Luckylife
11:50 am 10/28/2014
If a 15kg weight is placed on a kitchen top and a ball bearing is rolled past it
, ask the question, did the mass of the weight deflect the course of the bearing
? A theoretical Physicist will tell you that it did, you just couldn t see it. How
ever, I m not convinced. Gravity is the domain of massive objects
being studied by
the atom-smashers. Viz. Particles and atoms weighing almost nothing levitated b
y hyper strong magnetic fields there is virtually no chance they will find any G
ravitational carrier, by their own admission its not nearly strong enough to ove
rcome the existent forces already in play.
Massive objects on the order of kilometers across will be reducing atomic electr
on orbit thru pressure at the core of the object regardless of energy status. In
the same way that when a free electron emits synchrotron radiation when its pat
h is diverted by magnet field, is Gravity a relative of this phenomenon? Similar
ly, will a micro-gravity be created when matter is compressed during high-pressu
re Physics experiments (Diamond Anvil)?
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14. JohnDuffield
1:23 pm 10/29/2014
Andrew, re: p196 Methods of Mathematical Physics II C & H 1962 Since the wave equ
ation does not contain dispersion terms, we can construct the rotationally symme
tric wave
Hence the 4pn/vc. The wave sweeps out a sphere, and there s two orthogonal rotation
s as per Dirac s belt.
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15. AndrewFrancisOliver
3:46 pm 10/29/2014
John, re your comments to the effect that the laws of physics take precedence ov
er mathematical elegance, this reminds me of a book I read long ago in 1977 I th
ink when I was studying sixth form chemistry Martin Knudsen claimed page 37:The result of my measurements with hydrogen are contained in the following empiri
cal formula:
dp / dtheta = p / 2 * theta * (1 + 2.46 * r * (1 + 3.15 r / lamda) / ((lamda) *
(1 + 24.6) * r / lamda)) ** -2
where
1 / lamda = 0.08753 * p * (273 / theta ) ** 1.182
Unfortunately those who prefer scientists of good reputation and the elegance of
dimensionless constants will always avoid such ways of research and, instead, r
eturn to first principles and try to generate the dimensionless observed values
by using 3-D countably infinite generalized arrays of summable quantum terms tha
t converge or diverge depending on the grouping of the terms
or so I understand
maybe I should confess I ve got a mathematics degree not a physics degree
and gene
ralized conceptions of Kummer Jenson Tests for these 3-D countably infinite arra
ys suggest we need to use spherical co-ordinates to get the sums to add up corre
ctly which was the point I was trying to make

Link to this
16. IdeaShopX
12:37 am 10/30/2014
I question the logic utilized in quantum and relativity theories. The root probl
em is that modern science defines time to be considered as a vector, when in rea
lity tine is a scalar. Can you point in the direction of five minutes? I think n
ot. How many minutes is a kilometer? Is time really represented by the square ro
ot of a minus one? no.
Why does time slow down when a massive body is accelerated? Wait, what is mass?
OK, why does mass increase when a particle is accelerated? What is inertia? I cl
aim that the mathematics of string theory has an infinite number of solutions, w
hich eliminates it as a viable theory. What do you think?
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17. thray123
7:07 am 11/20/2014
I claim that the mathematics of string theory has an infinite number of solutions
, which eliminates it as a viable theory. What do you think?
I think that if a finite number of solutions is among an infinite number, the th
eory is viable. Infinity isn t a number; it isn t actually true that string theory has
an infinite number of solutions the latest I heard is that the number of soluti
ons in Calabi-Yau manifolds is estimated at 10^500. That s large, not infinite a t
heory that has a truly infinite number of solutions is in fact not a physical th
eory at all.
If string theory is correct in the first place, then the odds are pretty good th
at we live in one of those 10^500 worlds and that s the problem, because having to
bet on the odds militates against the idea that a unique solution should be non
-probabilistic, i.e., should be deducible from first principles. The first princ
iple of string theory (supersymmetry) is at least as reasonable as the first pri
nciple of quantum theory (superposition of particle states).
In any case, you are incorrect that science always takes time as a vector, vice
scalar. Proper time in relativity is a scalar.
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18. SeanC4
6:20 pm 04/14/2015
I think anyone can come up with a theory of physics. For example if you consider
a photon or any particle as being composed of billions of hypotheical particles
that can only strongly interact with each other, with distance invarient force
then you can explain quantum slit experiments, entanglement and gravity. For ent
anglement you can say that two photons have exchanged some hypothetical particle
s and that distance invariant force means they continue to exchange state inform
ation at any distance.
Is that a great physics idea or what? And yet you could think of multiple object
ions to that and similar hobby therories.