Friday, November 16, 2007

Surf's Up! and it's bringing in an new GUT!

Shaun Saunders sends in this article from the Uk's Telegraph online

The headline reads:
Surfer dude stuns physicists with theory of everything!

An impoverished surfer has drawn up a new theory of the universe, seen by some as the Holy Grail of physics, which has received rave reviews from scientists. Garrett Lisi, 39, has a doctorate but no university affiliation and spends most of the year surfing in Hawaii, where he has also been a hiking guide and bridge builder. 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. Lee Smolin at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, describes Lisi's work as "fabulous". "It is one of the most compelling unification models I've seen in many, many years," he says. The new theory reported today in New Scientist has been laid out in an online paper entitled "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything" by Lisi, who completed his doctorate in theoretical physics in 1999 at the University of California, San Diego.

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2 comments:

Dave Tackett said...

It certainly is an interesting time in physics, with so many intriguing but unproven theories. If Lisi's theory pans out (unlikely but you never know) I expect he will be a much bigger media sensation than even Einstein was. Surfer/physicist is a perfect rags to riches story with plenty of fodder for late-night comedians ("Ok, like there are totally gnarly quarks and the come in all these b****in' flavors").

Anonymous said...

LMFAO! You know, I will wager that we won't have to wait to see if he pans out or not. This guy is tailor made for the media and he is HUNGRY. He will be on comedy central doing quasi news any day now!