Is There One Equation That Can Explain All of Physics?

[ffleming7]

On Neil Turok's TEDtalk he talked about a single equation that described all known physics. He put the equation in the background, but it was hard to read. Does anyone know what this equation is and if it is ever practical?

 

[_Mayday_]

It is very hard to believe there is one, was it relatively short or what?

 

[ffleming7]

It is very very long.

 

[ffleming7]

Here's a picture of the equation from the talk. It's hard to see.

 

[russ_watters]

I would guess he meant it as a joke.

 

[Poop-Loops]

Yeah, that doesn't look meaningful, just a brief run-down of some of the most important ones, all mushed together.

 

[Mk]

Hah, that is, in a way, funny.

 

[Chi Meson]

I think it's saying that "The function for everything is an integration of all the work of all of the major physicists."

 

[Astronuc]

I think Chi meson is correct. I think this is right.

\Psi\,=\,\int{e^{{\frac{i}{\hbar}} \int{(\frac{R}{16\pi{G}}\,-\,F^2\,+\,\overline{\psi}iD\psi\,-\,\lambda\varphi\overline{\psi}\psi\,+\,|D\varphi|^2\,-\,V(\varphi))}}}

Schrödinger - \Psi

Planck - \hbar or it might be just h?

Einstein and Newton - \frac{R}{16\pi{G}}

Maxwell-Yang-Mills - F^2

Dirac - \overline{\psi}iD\psi

Yukawa - \lambda\varphi\overline{\psi}\psi

Higgs - |D\varphi|^2

 

[humanino]

Hi,

Just to add a little bit, the equation is not completely trivial, in fact I think ChiMeson did not use the word "work" randomely, because each term is usually included in a lagrangian, used to construct the action. Astro, you missed the imaginary i on top of h ! This is Feynman's thesis

So, let me quote Feynman once again... He gave this (trivial) example to illustrate what physicists call "TOE".

Any equation can be cast into the form A=0 (waow...) Now suppose you have a list of known physics equations at some point in time. Call those equations A_{i}=0 with i a label running on as many equations you have, possibly infinite in number. A TOE can be constructed by the single equation : \sum_i (A_{i})^2 =0

This construction is not what people would like to call a TOE. In particular, this single equation is completely useless, does not lead to any insight whatsoever on Nature and could be called a big cheat. Are you sure that the previous proposition is much more clever that this (Feynman) procedure ?

 

[Astronuc]

The equation is presented in this talk - http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/232 at 4:50.

I missed the integral sign in front of the exponential too.

 

[snsrus]

Request for Assistance with "All Known Physics" formula

I am sorry to trouble you with such a trivial request, but I would be extremely grateful if someone could explain to me (1) how to read aloud (i.e., pronounce each part of) this formula and (2) what variable each of the symbols represents.

(Glad to reciprocate, if possible; I know a bit about U.S. law and speak Japanese fluently if either of those skills would be useful.)

 

[Mk]

I don't believe there is a standard way of saying where parentheses begin and end but the phrase "the quantity of" combined with pauses is often used to imply what is in parentheses and what isn't.

\Psi\,=\,\int{e^{{\frac{i}{\hbar}} \int{(\frac{R}{16\pi{G}}\,-\,F^2\,+\,\overline{\psi}iD\psi\,-\,\lambda\varphi\overline{\psi}\psi\,+\,|D\varphi|^2\,-\,V(\varphi))}}}

(capital) Psi equals the integral of e raised to the quantity of i over h-bar (or it might just be h) multiplied by the integral of R over 16 pi G minus F squared plus psi bar i D psi minus lambda phi psi bar psi plus the absolute value of D psi squared minus V phi.

 

[gartenzwerg]

still more on this equation at Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics - Public Lectures
pdf and media available

 

[john120958]

2 n k equation ?

 

[FyzxRulz]

Are we able to use it for something simple? Like basic gr12 physics?