IS THERE A THEORY OF EVERYTHING? - cont.
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IS THERE A THEORY OF EVERYTHING? - cont. |
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In principle, if we add more and more dimensions, we can ripple and bend them in different ways, thereby creating more forces. In 10 dimensions, in fact, we can accomodate all four fundamental forces! Actually, it’s not that simple. By naively going to 10 dimensions, we also introduce a host of esoteric mathematical inconsistencies (e.g., infinities and anomalies) that have killed all previous theories. The only theory which has survived every challenge posed to it is called superstring theory, in which this 10-dimensional universe is inhabited by tiny strings. In fact, in one swoop, this 10-dimensional string theory gives us a simple, compelling unification of all forces. Like a violin string, these tiny strings can vibrate and create resonances or “notes.” That explains why there are so many sub-atomic particles: they are just notes on a superstring. (This seems so simple, but in the 1950s physicists were drowning in an avalanche of sub-atomic particles. J.R. Oppenheimer, who helped build the atomic bomb, even said, out of sheer frustration, that the Nobel Prize should go to the physicist who does NOT discover a new particle that year!) Similarly, when the string moves in space and time, it warps the space around it, just as Einstein predicted. Thus, in a remarkably simple picture, we can unify gravity (as the bending of space caused by moving strings) with the other quantum forces (now viewed as vibrations of the string). Of course, any theory with this power and majesty has a problem. This theory, because it is a theory of everything, is really a theory of Creation. Thus, to fully test the theory requires re-creating Creation! At first, this might seem hopelessly impossible. We can barely leave the Earth’s puny gravity, let alone create universes in the laboratory. But there is a way out to this seemingly intractable problem. A theory of everything is also a theory of the everyday. Thus, this theory, when fully completed, will be able to explain the existence of protons, atoms, molecules, even DNA. The key is to fully solve the theory and test the theory against the known properties of the universe. At present, no one on Earth is smart enough to complete the theory. The theory is perfectly well-defined, but, you see, superstring theory is 21st-century physics that accidentally fell into the 20th century. It was discovered purely by accident, when two young physicists were thumbing through a mathematics book. The theory is so elegant and powerful, we were never “destined” to see it in the 20th century. The problem is that 21st-century mathematics has not been invented yet. |
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