{"id":1881,"date":"2010-12-27T15:07:33","date_gmt":"2010-12-27T20:07:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=1881"},"modified":"2010-12-27T15:07:33","modified_gmt":"2010-12-27T20:07:33","slug":"final-answer-to-the-final-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=1881","title":{"rendered":"Final Answer to the Final Question?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently read an article in Scientific American about particle physics (A Geometric Theory of Everything<\/a> by Garrett Lisi and James Owen Weatherall). I’ve been vaguely aware of the \u201cStandard Particle Model\u201d for a few years now, and how it was a big scientific advance back in the 1970’s and 80’s. But I really didn’t know much about it. <\/p>\n

This article helped to bring me up to speed. The big thing about the SPM is that is shows a lot of interesting relationships between the many different elementary particles that scientists have detected in their particle colliders over the past 50 years, including the standard atomic components electron, proton and neutron, the well-known photon which makes up light and magnetic attraction, and the spooky \u201canti-particles\u201d that propel the Starship Enterprise (on Star Trek). There are plenty more particles than those, and the new CERN super-collider in Switzerland will soon find even more. <\/p>\n

The Standard Model has shown its power by successfully predicting what the particle colliders will find. But there are still plenty of problems and gaps with it. It says nothing about gravity, for instance, and it still does not find common ground between the strong force (which keeps atom nuclei from flying apart) and electromagnetism and the weak force (responsible for radioactivity). <\/p>\n

The fascinating thing about the Standard Model is that is makes prodigious use of geometry; it comes up with complex mixes of basic shapes, like rings and donuts, to describe how the various matter and force particles relate to each other. But these relationships are still very strange, in many ways. The physicists who understand all of this scratch their heads about stuff like \u201cmixing angles\u201d and particular shapes (why rings and triangles, why not squares and star-patterns) and why does one set of fermion particles (e.g. electrons and quarks and neutrinos) have two \u201ccousin sets\u201d that are much fatter, i.e. much bigger in mass? And what is the Higgs boson doing in this mix, anyway? Is it really a \u201cmass intermediator\u201d?<\/p>\n

Well, the authors talk about a possible solution to all of these mysteries, based around a complicated geometric structure called \u201cSpin(11,3) embedded in an E8 Lie group\u201d. The E8 theory might be the long-sought Theory of Everything, but it makes some predictions about particles and forces that are currently unknown. If the new CERN collider finds particles and effects that are consistent with E8, then the E8 theorists can break out the champagne. If not, back to the drawing board.<\/p>\n

But I still wonder \u2013 even if E8 turns out to explain gravity and dark matter and dark energy, along with all of the other stuff that we already know, will that really be \u201cthe final answer\u201d? Will physicists then be satisfied to rest, saying \u201cwe have explained it all\u201d? Is no one going to ask, \u201cwhy E8\u201d?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently read an article in Scientific American about particle physics (A Geometric Theory of Everything by Garrett Lisi and James Owen Weatherall). I’ve been vaguely aware of the \u201cStandard Particle Model\u201d for a few years now, and how it was a big scientific advance back in the 1970’s and 80’s. But I really didn’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1881"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1881"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1883,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1881\/revisions\/1883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}