A month or so ago, a friend and I were discussing string theory and she brought up the name Garrett Lisi. She told me about an article she had read in The New Yorker about this surfer/physicist who had come up with a new TOE that didn’t rely on the confusing and (thus far) unobservable vagaries of string theory, in particular the necessity for reality to have 11 dimensions.
String theory has always seemed to me, a layman, to be a confusing mess, wherein anything that doesn’t fit the math is simply assigned a value that then allows the math to conform to the ideas it is trying to represent.
Lisi’s story is great reading, and this compelled me to want to find out more about his E8 TOE. I cannot follow the math; I simply don’t have the brilliance or the background to decipher it all, and even when it’s laid out for me, I have to do a lot of research just to catch up to the terms being used. As you can imagine, in a Theory Of Everything there is a lot that is under consideration and discussion.
However, to my eyes, and to some within the world of theoretical physics, there seems to be something here. His model and explanation is elegant but simple, and doesn’t seem to rely on making things up out of whole cloth simply to satisfy the values necessary for his equations to work, as string theory seems to do (seems to me to do, anway).
So, has anyone taken a look at Mr. Lisi’s TOE?
Is anyone else as cautiously optimistic as I am about the possibilities that an understanding of these basic forces of our universe could lead to?
Is he really onto something, or, like so many deep thinkers, is there a fatal flaw in his premise that negates all the elegance that follows?
Not being a theoretical physicist (although I know quite a few) I won’t comment on the core. But draw attention to a few bits of the Wikipedia page that are pertinent to the theory’s value.
It doesn’t cover quantisation. It is unable to predict particle masses. It is unfalseifiable.
The last one is a biggie. It predicts new particles, but can’t tell us what they look like. This is about as useful as a newspaper astrology column telling you that you will receive an unexpected surprise sometime.
The usual string theories predict particle masses, sometimes even correctly, but with the downside that you need to tune them with a gazillion parameters before they become stable and the masses fall out. This is a huge issue. But this theory isn’t much better. No masses and not so many parameters isn’t a lot of progress.
So, it would appear that whilst it has some elegance, which excites a few people, it has not much else going for it. It might actually be the basis for a wonderful new TOE. But right now there is no reason to think so. Considering the massive number of careers dashed against the hard rocks of string theory, you would be wary about flocking to yet another half baked theory to pin your career onto. (That is a sad and serious truth about why people don’t flock to new ideas easily. You have to publish. The entire tenure system, especially in US universities, but in other countries as well, is geared to encouraging mediocre work in established areas. The only people that can afford to work in a new area are those with tenure and secure funding. In other words, already emminent theorists. These people tend to already have their own pet ideas.)
One suspect that a lot of theorists are waiting for experimental results from the LHC before bothering to get stuck into something new. I know one very eminent theorist who is cheerfully predicting that the LHC will throw up no new particles at all. But there is a real hiatus where theorists know that there is a very real chance that the LHC will change the terrain dramatically.
I thought the one word was succinct and accurate, but since this is great debates I will add this edit: We have done this before. Do a search of GQ and you will find some good stuff. If unsatisfying, I will come back later and add more…
My theory is along the following lines: the universe is thin at one end; much, much thicker in the middle and then thin again at the far end. That is the theory that I have and which is mine…
My grasp of physics is such that I don’t have much of an opinion Lisi’s ideas. I do however have an opinion on this: “The Maldacena Conjecture” sounds like the title of a Robert Ludlum novel.
Francis, I thought it was cool that Lisi himself acknowledges that his theory is as yet incomplete, especially noting the things you mentioned. I know string theory didn’t leap into being with all parameters accounted for either (and ISTM they keep adding weird little things to make the math work the way they think it should), so I don’t see it as a big deal that parts of it still need work.
I understand what you’re saying about how tenure and careers work, and I think there’s a lot of good and a little bit of bad in the system. On the one hand, it helps to refine the good ideas, so that every little nuance is fully explored. On the other hand, it stops people from getting enthused about radical new ideas that may have merit. On the gripping hand, it also keeps people from wasting time chasing down every new idea proposed by a physicist who has a really good chemist friend.
I do think that it’s great that with Lisi’s TOE we don’t have to delve into esoterica to explain the workings of our universe. No 8-dimensional stuff, no 11-dimensional stuff. I’ve never understood how that was ever going to be quantifiable or falsifiable either. Saying that something exists, but that we don’t have the science to observe it is like claiming ghosts or heaven or pan-dimensional beings made of vibrating colors, to me.
I know the world of physics moves at a slightly faster speed than that of geologic change, but I also hope that the LHC turns up a new boson particle, so that Lisi can take a look at it, figure out where it fits his TOE, and then use that knowledge like a Rosetta stone to start filling in the parts he doesn’t have.
That could happen, right? I mean, real data can be used to flesh out a theory, can’t it?
It would be nice if the theory predicted a new particle and its parameters before the LHC discovered it. Constructing theories to explain particles after they are discovered isn’t much good unless it can predict new things. I’m sure that whatever the LHC discovers will be ‘proof’ of some string theory or another after the theory is tweaked a bit…
What will be interesting is if the LHC can’t find the Higgs Boson.
I haven’t been able to find it, but I think I read somewhere that Lisi had properties for either 3 or 4 of the 22 new bosuns he predicts, but the other 18 were as yet undescribed. I’ll keep looking through my intarwebz history.
