# Super Asymmetry?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/super-asymmetry/981527>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 23, 2023, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/super-asymmetry/981527 "2023-03-23T01:42:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![EnolaStraight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/41988e/32.png) [@EnolaStraight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EnolaStraight)\
**Post date:** [March 23, 2023, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/super-asymmetry/981527/1 "2023-03-23T01:42:01Z")

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Yeah…that fictional grand unification theory from The Big Bang Theory.

Starting at time index 1:12  
[(2) The Big bang theory - Sheldon and Amy Super Asymmetry eureka moment - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWBOFX_HSDk)  
Are any of the equasions and formulas lipsticked on the mirror legit…or is it all scientific gibberish?

(put in Factual Questions instead of Cafe Society to determine scientific fact)

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**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\
**Post date:** [March 23, 2023, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/super-asymmetry/981527/2 "2023-03-23T02:35:32Z")

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> [@EnolaStraight](#):
>
> Are any of the equasions and formulas lipsticked on the mirror legit…or is it all scientific gibberish?

We never get a clear view of the entire mirror but while I see a couple of things that look like they might be response functions in statistical mechanics, an equation that might be definition of characteristic temperature, what appears to be a Feynman diagram in the lower right corner, and a bunch of random words like “divergence” and “fermions”, it does look like just random equations they got someone to write on the mirror. While I could only stand to listen to the clip twice, the dialogue is even worse and the entire idea of “super asymmetry” is pure technogibberish.

Writing out the formulation for even a very basic interaction for two superstrings would take at up at least a page on one of those giant landscape sketchbook, and in fact in the time before there were computer algebra systems that could handle systems that complex it was a cachet among physics grad students working on M-theory to carry these awkward things around (presumably in imitation of Ed Witten who would reportedly walk around Harvard and later Institute of Advanced Study with such a notebook). You can’t expect a sitcom to shoot for technical accuracy, of course, but the idea that a couple of people would come up with a profoundly unique theory of everything that would fit onto a mirror written in lipstick is obviously absurd (as I’m sure it was intended to be).

Stranger

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**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\
**Post date:** [March 24, 2023, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/super-asymmetry/981527/3 "2023-03-24T00:22:56Z")

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> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#):
>
> You can’t expect a sitcom to shoot for technical accuracy, of course, but the idea that a couple of people would come up with a profoundly unique theory of everything that would fit onto a mirror written in lipstick is obviously absurd (as I’m sure it was intended to be).

About as absurd as winning a Nobel prize almost immediately after publishing your groundbreaking work.