Einstein's Quest to 'Know God's Thoughts' Could Take Millenia

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« on: June 09, 2019, 11:45:00 pm »
Einstein's Quest to 'Know God's Thoughts' Could Take Millenia

Don Lincoln

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However, physicists suspect this final unification would also take place at the Planck energy, again because this is the energy and size at which quantum effects can no longer be ignored in relativity theory. And, as we've seen, this is a much higher energy than we can hope to achieve inside a particle accelerator any time soon. To give a sense of the chasm between current theories and a theory of everything, if we represented the energies of particles we can detect as the width of a cell membrane, the Planck energy is the size of Earth. While it is conceivable that someone with a thorough understanding of cell membranes might predict other structures within a cell — things like DNA and mitochondria — it is inconceivable that they could accurately predict the Earth. How likely is it that they could predict volcanoes, oceans or Earth's magnetic field?

The simple fact is that with such a large gap between currently achievable energy in particle accelerators and the Planck energy, correctly devising a theory of everything seems improbable.

That doesn't mean physicists should all retire and take up landscape painting — there is still meaningful work to be done. We still need to understand unexplained phenomena such as dark matter and dark energy, which make up 95% of the known universe, and use that understanding to create a newer, more comprehensive theory of physics. This newer theory will not be a TOE, but will be incrementally better than the current theoretical framework. We will have to repeat that process over and over again.

Disappointed? So am I. After all, I've devoted my life to trying to uncover some of the secrets of the cosmos, but perhaps some perspective is in order. The first unification of forces was accomplished in the 1670s with Newton's theory of universal gravity. The second was in the 1870s with Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism. The electroweak unification was relatively recent, only half a century ago.

Given that 350 years has elapsed since our first big successful step in this journey, perhaps it's less surprising that the path ahead of us is longer still. The notion that a genius will have an insight that results in a fully developed theory of everything in the next few years is a myth. We're in for a long slog — and even the grandchildren of today's scientists won't see the end of it.

But what a journey it will be.