PhD Surf Bum Proposes New Unified Theory

[Badger]

So is anything about E8, or how this theory works explainable to the general public?

[thylacine]

Links:

The paper

http://arxiv.org/abs/0711.0770

Technical stuff:

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/week253.html

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/octonions/oct.pdf (long)

Blogs:

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=617

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=196498

http://backreaction.blogspot.com/200...eption-of.html

http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/11/ex...theory-of.html

You will note that opinions vary considerably.

Enjoy! [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[AvivaSimplex]

[ QUOTE ]
http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/11/ex...theory-of.html


[/ QUOTE ]
This guy is an enormous dick.

[JMAnon]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/11/ex...theory-of.html


[/ QUOTE ]
This guy is an enormous dick.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed. But that doesn't mean he's wrong.

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/11/ex...theory-of.html


[/ QUOTE ]
This guy is an enormous dick.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed. But that doesn't mean he's wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

He has a long track record of screwing up some really simple stuff and has a habit of disagreeing with mainstream scientists on a variety of topics. It would be wise to look for other sources of information even if it's only to double check what he writes.

[thylacine]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/11/ex...theory-of.html


[/ QUOTE ]
This guy is an enormous dick.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed. But that doesn't mean he's wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

He has a long track record of screwing up some really simple stuff and has a habit of disagreeing with mainstream scientists on a variety of topics. It would be wise to look for other sources of information even if it's only to double check what he writes.

[/ QUOTE ]

You've got me curious. What is it he screwed up? And who does he disagree with? You're talking about Motl right? I thought he was with the mainstream string theorists, though clearly not part of the mainstream personality-wise.

[Duke]

I came in here to see if there was discussion about this topic, and kinda hoped that Borodog would have weighed in by now.

I'm a huge fan of symmetry arguments for pretty much everything, so I'm obviously pretty interested in this work. It'll take me another couple weeks to really understand this theory enough to draw my own conclusions, as I'd never heard of E8 or about half of the previous cited work that they're talking about.

I believe that I recall the dude at arstechnica having huge problems with the paper doing things like assigning velocities to energies, and other nonsense. When it comes to this sort of thing though, some sorts of nonsense get me even more excited about the theories, and I'm not yet decided if this is good nonsense or bad.

Going through the paper, though, it looks like Boro might be a bit unhappy about the units.

Anyhow, I'll be checking back in periodically on this topic specifically.

[thylacine]

[ QUOTE ]
Links:

The paper

http://arxiv.org/abs/0711.0770

Technical stuff:

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/week253.html

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/octonions/oct.pdf (long)

Blogs:

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=617

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=196498

http://backreaction.blogspot.com/200...eption-of.html

http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/11/ex...theory-of.html

You will note that opinions vary considerably.

Enjoy! [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]


This thing is causing quite a stir. Some more links:

http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/11/16...of-everything/

http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/~distler/...es/001505.html

[Metric]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Links:

The paper

http://arxiv.org/abs/0711.0770

Technical stuff:

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/week253.html

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/octonions/oct.pdf (long)

Blogs:

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=617

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=196498

http://backreaction.blogspot.com/200...eption-of.html

http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/11/ex...theory-of.html

You will note that opinions vary considerably.

Enjoy! [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]


This thing is causing quite a stir. Some more links:

http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/11/16...of-everything/

http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/~distler/...es/001505.html

[/ QUOTE ]
It would be cool if this idea works, but I personally can't say much about it one way or another -- I've tried to get interested in unification schemes, but it's basically all group theory, trying out various ways to fit the standard model gauge group into something less disjoint and weird. I zone out on this kind of task after a while.

[thylacine]

[ QUOTE ]

It would be cool if this idea works, but I personally can't say much about it one way or another -- I've tried to get interested in unification schemes, but it's basically all group theory, trying out various ways to fit the standard model gauge group into something less disjoint and weird. I zone out on this kind of task after a while.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, it seems this paper is doing a variation of something quite traditional. With anything like this I would always want to know, where does this group come from, and why this group instead of that one? I don't think these groups and symmetries are fundamental. They are created by dynamic processes. In other words, I believe in symmetry making, not symmetry breaking.