Prospective grand unifying theory?

[mibaokula]

Since I have no idea what the right way is, I have no idea that physicists are looking at it the wrong way. My hope would be that a lot of the results in string theory and some other approaches are relevant, say, in they way the Bohr atom was to QFT. I think there is a reasonable chance that one of the current approaches will pan out, and I would give an edge to string theory, but I think it more likely the key concepts for progress have not occurred yet.

My belief that the next major breakthrough model won't be the last is purely based on history and the fact that the observed energy scales are a minute fraction what has likely occurred in the universe. Look at the understanding of physics at times separated by, say, 300 years. Even where longstanding formulas were still useful, the conceptual basis was radically different. I see no evidence to believe there is a break in this pattern.

i agree with you - but that's why i voted for string theory, because i felt it was the closest to an idea of a TOE; by other, i meant other scientific theories

 

[marcus]

Miba, if you are interested in the realistic prospects for unification you may have started out on the wrong foot, so to speak. I would suggest you watch the first 25 minutes of this talk

http://media.medfarm.uu.se/flvplayer/strings2011/video24
...

Judging by history---how science typically proceeds---a realistic vision of the future would probably entail incremental progress like that described by Frank Wilczek in the first 25 minutes of his talk.

What he calls "quantitative unification" of the 3 forces at the level of Quantum Field Theory. So that basically you have a trimmer more coherent standard model---basically one material and one force---and can understand dark matter.

He says now is the right time to consider this because in the next few years we will have LHC plus new data about the early universe (observational cosmology). It is a potent combination, and the 3-force standard model already shows signs of qualitative unification.
Is begging for it, as he says. (Clearly we aren't talking about unif with gravity yet--just 3-way.)

Steven Weinberg already pointed to a resurgence of "good old QFT" when he spoke in July 2009 at CERN.

IOW today's wise heads do not foresee any wild leaps to some fantasy "TOE". It is probably misleading to imagine the future in terms of such a wild leap, and meaningless to ask in which direction such a leap might be, or what is "closest" to the right direction.

...My belief that the next major breakthrough model won't be the last is purely based on history and the fact that the observed energy scales are a minute fraction what has likely occurred in the universe...

Without question. And Wilczek (who was asked to give an overview of the state and likely future of fundamental physics) suggests that the next major breakthrough model will be formulated in Quantum Field Theory.

He was talking specifically about the next unification step, and about discovering the makeup of dark matter.

When that is accomplished it will surely be much clearer what the next next unification might be.

So on the poll I would say "OTHER" and since the poll asks that we say what other we have in mind, I would say QFT à la Wilczek. Just my hunch, you could say some other line of QFT unfication that's testable and being developed: QFT du jour, QFT à la somebodyelse. A lot of people are taking this line now: the question being asked at this year's big string conference was "where are the strings?" So many of the invited speakers were not using string but instead doing QFT. Wilczek's talk explains why.

 

[d9090]

nearly half of you put "other". would you mind explaining?

I have rolled my own GUT and TOE. I am not a physicist or mathematician (or a religious freak or mysical New Age advocate, etc) but will be considered a kook.

Offered for what its worth, though... here is the most fundamental statement of the TOE held in my "Beon-Void Conjecture":

The Universe consists of Beons and the Void;
Everything else is Persistent Emergent Process.

Keeping in mind always that:

The Map is not the Territory
( a Shell map of Indiana doesn't mean
that Indiana consists of ink on paper.)

and:

The novelties of a higher level emergent phenomena
cannot be applied to lower level phenomena.
( the Downward Analogy Syndrome )

I have developed a roadmap from "BVspace" through the emergence of Huygen Pulse/Waves and "Huygens space" to the co-emergence of "quanta" (particle-like 'core' of a quanta's process) and "microgravitation" (the field-effect created by the process of a "quanta".)

Of course I couldn't do any of this clinging to the idea that quanta have no underlying physical mechanism. And I cannot be "scientific" about what cannot be systematically "observed." Primitive, immutable "entities" (Beons) as defined cannot emit a field-force: there is no action at a distance between Beons. This makes Observation virtually impossible. But mathematical modelling is possible and it seems it would be straightforward.

And so I am just another kook. But I believe that eventually a well-respected kook mathematicians with computer skills will rigorously fill out a similar roadmap. When they do, theoretical physics will be much better for it: unified and NOT weird.

d.

ps. fwiw, The term "beon" was coined to avoid confusion and a lot of typing: 'a-tomos' were considered to be 'matter' and to 'bind' in some way. Beons cannot be 'matter' and emergence from BVspace does not involve 'binding' in any way.

 

[mibaokula]

I have rolled my own GUT and TOE. I am not a physicist or mathematician (or a religious freak or mysical New Age advocate, etc) but will be considered a kook.

Offered for what its worth, though... here is the most fundamental statement of the TOE held in my "Beon-Void Conjecture":

The Universe consists of Beons and the Void;
Everything else is Persistent Emergent Process.

Keeping in mind always that:

The Map is not the Territory
( a Shell map of Indiana doesn't mean
that Indiana consists of ink on paper.)

and:

The novelties of a higher level emergent phenomena
cannot be applied to lower level phenomena.
( the Downward Analogy Syndrome )

I have developed a roadmap from "BVspace" through the emergence of Huygen Pulse/Waves and "Huygens space" to the co-emergence of "quanta" (particle-like 'core' of a quanta's process) and "microgravitation" (the field-effect created by the process of a "quanta".)

Of course I couldn't do any of this clinging to the idea that quanta have no underlying physical mechanism. And I cannot be "scientific" about what cannot be systematically "observed." Primitive, immutable "entities" (Beons) as defined cannot emit a field-force: there is no action at a distance between Beons. This makes Observation virtually impossible. But mathematical modelling is possible and it seems it would be straightforward.

And so I am just another kook. But I believe that eventually a well-respected kook mathematicians with computer skills will rigorously fill out a similar roadmap. When they do, theoretical physics will be much better for it: unified and NOT weird.

d.

ps. fwiw, The term "beon" was coined to avoid confusion and a lot of typing: 'a-tomos' were considered to be 'matter' and to 'bind' in some way. Beons cannot be 'matter' and emergence from BVspace does not involve 'binding' in any way.

...erm... please elaborate?

 

[Oldfart]

Has there been any serious attempt to determine if development of a TOE is theoretically possible?

 

[tom.stoer]

Has there been any serious attempt to determine if development of a TOE is theoretically possible?

I don't know - so let's start here: every such attempt has to start with a definition what a ToE really is:
- a ToE must describe / predict all physical phenomena which are experimentally accessable in principle
- a ToE must describe and unify all interactions
- ...

I think here we see the first problems: what does "unify" mean? what is "all"? How shall we know that a given theory is the ToE - or a ToE? Could it be that we already have the ToE, namely string theory, but that is is not yet fully developed? How will we recognize a ToE?

 

[qsa]

A grand unifying theory is not really a theory of everything it is just a theory that unites the Standard Model with GR.

A theory of everything has to go quite a bit further, in particular it should explain QM. The type of theory qsa is always going on about ( ) has been proposed by http://www.nbi.dk/~kleppe/Holger/holger.html , a respected (former?) string theorist, namely http://www.nbi.dk/~kleppe/random/qa/qa.html.

(eg see the essay by Nielsen et al in proceedings What Comes Beyond the Standard Model 2007 Slovenia, or the articles by Kleppe in 2004 and 2009 conferences)

Actually I would think QM is a theory of everything, just that we haven't understood it correctly yet.

good find. Can you elaborate on why do you think that his analysis can resolve fundamental issues. I will comment later when i study it more.

 

[unusualname]

good find. Can you elaborate on why do you think that his analysis can resolve fundamental issues. I will comment later when i study it more.

Not really, I barely understand it (http://www.nbi.dk/~kleppe/random/trapp/u.html ;-) ), I just was pointing out that GUTs and extensions to gravity aren't really a theory of everything.

Nielsen is credited with being one of the early "discoverers" of string theory, but it was back in the days when they still thought it was a promising hadron model rather than unifying gravity with the SM. (Like Susskind he may be getting a little over-ambitious in his later years due to string theory fame )

(I'm sure I mentioned this a while back, maybe in a thread that got deleted?)

 

[d9090]

...erm... please elaborate?

Okay.. but this probably isn't the right place. I am working on a website and trying to convert my notes and drawing over to .html and .jpg. But it amounts to quite a few pages and working time is limited.

Here is a crude first draft of abstract...

=== start of abstract text ===

BVC develops the assumption that at its unobservable, most primitive level the Universe is "simple" and deterministic; and that all observable phenomena are "complex" dynamic, emergent and persistent Processes.

Two psuedo-system primitives - S(1) "Beons" and S(0) "Void" are examined through geometry and thought experiment. Their minimalist "classical" physical feature sets leads to the emergence of behaviors (pulse/wave phenomena) in "BVspace" appearing to obey Huygen's Principle; and in so creating (from one perspective) a soft-solid "luminiferous aether" field or "H-field."

Distortions in H-field may produce persistent phonon-like processes, "quanta" and other multi-quanta "phenoms" which exhibit probabilistic, discontinuous behaviors. It is suggested that some of these "phenoms" correspond to "particles" in the Standard Model. Others may be non-photon-interactive "dark matter".

[note: In my thought experiments, both cellular animation and the emergent behavior of "oscillons" are gingerly channelled.]

The interactive motion of these process-structures through H-space mimics both "particle mass" and a weak, additive "micro-gravitational" field-force. The number of quanta involved in a phenom is proportional to its "mass". As mass increase so does the strength and range of the micro-gravitational field-force.

A second form of "gravity" is suggested in conditions of high Beon densities (e.g., neutron stars and black holes) in BVspace. Dense regions create anisomorphic conditions cause regions of H-space (and the phenoms emergent from it) to "drift" along with BVspace It is essentially the same mechanism of DeSage gravitation.

This should be testable as "process inertia" should change at the limits of micro and macro gravitational fields.

=== end of abstract text ===

Simple kinematic (?) mechanics of massless, immutable bodies can be used to model the static, continuous "classical" behavior of Beons in BVspace. Beons cannot emit field-forces and so cannot be 'observed' and so must be dealt with geometrically or otherwise mathematically, through models and thought experiments.

The Idea of a general "Process physics" is proposed (basically fQM and GR) to deal with dynamic emergence, persistence and bifercation of "process" systems (any persistent system wherein a process or change of state is possible) and the relative 'motion' of any two such systems. Basically this covers anything but BVspace -- any "system" with more or less consistent 'physical' form and behavior that is not a Beon. Typically process systems are cyclic but not necessarily "periodic" relative to another cycle (e.g. a 'clock')

Quanta, photons and mass are all dynamic emergence phenomena and the values of h, c and m are discussed as being 'event limits' (with small ranges of variance) rather than absolute constants. For mass, the difference between 'rest' and 'moving' mass values is explained by their process motion).

Beons, not matter or processes, are not constrained by h or c and do not have mass, charge, color, et al. Beons are not "point" particles and have non-zero volume.

Waveforms naturally 'collapse' in BVspace because there is a limit to the number of density waves which can be superimposed in a region of BVspace before a qualitative change occurs (i.e., a Huygens pulse occurs.)

Maps of the "Territory Universe" based on observation must be probablistic because ALL possible observations cannot be made or known, even by a Perfect or LePlacean Observer" The Map is not the Territory. The qualities of a Map do not necessarily translate into actual physical features in the TU.

Discrete maps must have a minimal 'gauge'; and not all experimentally mapped phenomena are geometrically congruent. E.g, Single-point "location" map is incongruent with a two-point minimum "displacement" map. BVC does not find either Heisenburg Uncertainty or the inability to experimentally determine location and velocity simultaneously in any way 'weird'. "Weird" is giving more weight to classical mechanical theory and Galileo than to the evidence.

The M-M experiment doesn't not 'prove' the absence of 'aether': it goes proves the fallicity of "ponderous matter".. the Earth is not a poderous body apart from BVspace, but a set of waveforms occurring upon it.. No observable Aether Drift from this.

"Rest" is an emergent property of Process. There is no useful sense of "rest" in BVspace which is not arbitrarily introduced by an observer. Moreover neither the Earth or anything else in its proximate vicinity is "at rest" or represents a suitable "rest state", except relative to each other.

The following is a list of phenomena considered "fundamental" in current theory, but are considered emergent in BVC: matter, energy, gravitation, electromagnetism, weak force, strong force, entropy.

Other nearly fundamental standard model concepts BVC considered to be necessarily emergent: gaugeable time (clocks), gaugable space ("rigid" rods), time-space curvature, life, consciousness, intelligence.

The 'primitive' concepts basic to BVC are; Extension (infinite and ungauged), Duration (infinite and ungauged), the Void (no physical characteristics other than E and D), Beons (finite, immutable, eternal and "physically" unique -- no two Beons may occupy the same location in the Void.) Barring what I haven't considered (pssibly a lot, of course) everything else can be deduced from or is emergent from these primitive concepts.

A direct result from the nature of Beons and the Void is the conservation of Beon momenta; and indirectly, the conservation of emergent 'matter' and 'energy'.

Microgravity is a hint to how easy unifying GR and QM would be granting the BV Conjecture. But BVC compatibility with GR and SR can't be fully described without delving into the details of Process Systems ("phenoms") and their relative Process-Motion.

offered for what it's worth..

d.

 

[Oldfart]

I don't know - so let's start here: every such attempt has to start with a definition what a ToE really is:
- a ToE must describe / predict all physical phenomena which are experimentally accessable in principle
- a ToE must describe and unify all interactions
- ...

I think here we see the first problems: what does "unify" mean? what is "all"? How shall we know that a given theory is the ToE - or a ToE? Could it be that we already have the ToE, namely string theory, but that is is not yet fully developed? How will we recognize a ToE?

I guess that I should take a step backward and ask if a serious effort has ever been made to define what a ToE is... but I'm getting the feeling that this probably can't be done by a democratic physics community, dunno...

 

[tom.stoer]

I guess that I should take a step backward and ask if a serious effort has ever been made to define what a ToE is... but I'm getting the feeling that this probably can't be done by a democratic physics community, dunno...

No, physics is the wrong place for democracy :-) Regarding your question: I would like to speculate that this has been done in the very early days of SUGRA.

 

[Oldfart]

No, physics is the wrong place for democracy :-)

Heh-heh...

What form of dictatorship would you recommend? Ahh, the physics summer, a refreshing change from the Arab spring...

 

[tom.stoer]

I recommend an oligarchy of nature (phenomenology) and mathematics

 

[d9090]

...erm... please elaborate?

I now have a short answer as well.. "What Steve Rado said."

I just discovered his work.. I've been looking 30 years for something like his "Aethro-Kinematics"

From what little ived read so far, there are slight differences but basically substitute "Aethrons" for Beon-emergent Hp/w and all the rest follows quite nicely.

thank you for your consideration
apologies for any wasting of your time

d.

 

[mibaokula]

Every scientist knows that the atom standard model of particle physics (SMP) is not a real matter definition, although it is a practical tool depicting our experience. It isn’t really a model, but a set of engineering strategies and math formulas to allow us to work with known phenomena. It’s the best we have, but not nearly adequate for advanced research. What we need is a real model for matter at the atomic level. It will lead us to the discovery of the unified fundamental law of physics. I call it Fortes.
With Fortes, it all starts by realizing that energy, not mass, is the Universal fundamental element. Einstein, as all of us did, readily accepted the assumption that matter is the basic substance of the universe. Therefore, everything is composed of particles even though such concept encounters many contradictions and creates paradoxes. The duality of the current definitions of light behavior is a simple example of such exasperating conflicts. Nonetheless, particles are something that we can see, feel, measure, and contain, so we imagined it. Therefore, Einstein related energy to this basic substance called mass (meaning a particle) and expressed it with his famous equation.
If energy is the universal basic substance, then mass is nothing more than a property of energy as expressed by the equation already used to solve electronics dilemmas. But this conjecture alone does not allow the formulation of an atomic simulator. Hence we developed the Fortes first postulate: The universe is defined by real four-dimensional energy organized by quantized energy states. The fourth dimensional energy is represented by a complex number that includes incremental time.
More at www.teknox.org[/URL] – in construction.[/QUOTE]

isnt the common belief that mass is energy? E=mc^2 suggests such an idea. if you look at it in terms of the anihilation of a positron and electron, their mass is converted into energy right? if you look at theories like string theory(s), everything at super magnification is made up of "strings" of energy.

 

[mibaokula]

i just thought this up on a whim. But why are physicists trying to sum up what the universe is by what i call fundamentals (or super magnification). Why don't physicists try to explain what the whole universe is by looking outside rather than do so by looking at what its made of. Taking a really simple example; the human body is made of various cells, but this tells us nothing of how cells work in organs, organs work in organisms and how or organisms interact with one another. No; to understand something in detail you must look at the whole picture otherwise you'll still come across many anomalies and limitations that waste time. If you want to know what I'm thinking, a single nerve cell or quark will not tell us this, we need to know of the many complex biochemical reactions and neural transmissions in the brain contributing to my feelings etc.

likewise, i think that a TOE cannot be a fundamental type theory alone; although knowing how things work a fundamental level will help. the most difficult task will be finding out what lies out in the cosmos. No-one has actually "seen" a black hole or the numerous other strange phenomenon in space so we cannot explain them fully. And there's the problem of dark energy/matter; if there was a GUT, would it really be able to explain this?

 

[mibaokula]

Hello mibaokula: You are absolutely right. Yet, quantum mechanics is based on “particles.” And the SMP is not a model (in the sense of simulation); in addition the string theory still messes with paradox of sometimes a wave and sometimes a particle. They are Band-Aids to fix a system that is not doing the job (sounds like politics, ha!)
Once we accept that energy is the prime element of the universe, and thus mass is nothing more than an attribute of energy (measuring the field density) residing primarily in the 4D space (not time), then particles are no more. And suddenly, many paradoxes and controversy is replaced by logical, consistent formulation.

if you've heard of the grand unification theories: electroweak and electro-nuclear, they postulate your ideas kinda. they say that as you get closer to the start of the universe, there is only energy and one type of energy - a unification of electromagnetic, strong, weak and gravitational forces - though they're not really there yet with gravity (thats kinda why where in this mess i guess). these split up into the four forces and i guess matter is "made" somehow. i think you're absolutely right; matter is energy just like glass which we can touch is actually a liquid.

 

[avemt1]

i just thought this up on a whim. But why are physicists trying to sum up what the universe is by what i call fundamentals (or super magnification). Why don't physicists try to explain what the whole universe is by looking outside rather than do so by looking at what its made of. Taking a really simple example; the human body is made of various cells, but this tells us nothing of how cells work in organs, organs work in organisms and how or organisms interact with one another. No; to understand something in detail you must look at the whole picture otherwise you'll still come across many anomalies and limitations that waste time. If you want to know what I'm thinking, a single nerve cell or quark will not tell us this, we need to know of the many complex biochemical reactions and neural transmissions in the brain contributing to my feelings etc.

likewise, i think that a TOE cannot be a fundamental type theory alone; although knowing how things work a fundamental level will help. the most difficult task will be finding out what lies out in the cosmos. No-one has actually "seen" a black hole or the numerous other strange phenomenon in space so we cannot explain them fully. And there's the problem of dark energy/matter; if there was a GUT, would it really be able to explain this?

If you think about it the big picture is what physicists are trying to get at. Here is an example: The human body is made up of many different organs. Now, to understand what these organs do and how they interact and support each other we have to study them individually. Once we do that and still have answers we have to ask ourselves "what is that organ made of, and how does it work?"
It is just the fact that you can look at something and see it, but you cannot understand the full functionality of the object by looking at just one level.

 

[ohwilleke]

I've been really impressed with the progress that can be made within the Standard Model with a quite minor extension to include four rather than three generations of Standard Model fermions, something that makes possible something very close to unificiation without elaborate and undiscovered SUSY particles or extra dimensions within existing experimental boundaries using nothing more elaborate than an SU(5) framework.

It is one of the most straight foward ways to explain excess CP violation where it is observed and also comports with evidence from the MINOS conference by two different methodologies supporting the existing of more than three generations of neutrinos. P.Q. Hung has made this point in a number of articles among the earliest of which is this one: http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/9712338 entitled "Minimal SU(5) Resuscitated by Long-Lived Quarks and Leptons." In this scenario: "SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1) gauge couplings converge to a common point of approximately 3.5x10^{15} GeV (corresponding to a proton lifetime of approximately 10^{34 plus/minus 1} years)." Updates to this original insight in this 1997 paper by Hung have been made by Hung and others to reflect theoretical refinements and new experimental data at least as recently as 2011 in this paper: http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1102/1102.3997v1.pdf

An example of how this framework could explain excess CP violation in B and kaon decay is found at http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1011/1011.2634v1.pdf

Along the same lines, a five generation model could explain neutrino mass in a satisfactory way. http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1106/1106.0415v2.pdf

I am also impressed with the prospects for finding links between the CKM and PMNS mixing matrixes and the masses of the fermions (perhaps via relationships between the square roots of these masses), that could give us better insights into the fundamentals at work in both of these constants, as explored, for example, in this doctoral dissertation: http://cp3.irmp.ucl.ac.be/upload/theses/phd/goffinet.pdf

 

[mibaokula]

If you think about it the big picture is what physicists are trying to get at. Here is an example: The human body is made up of many different organs. Now, to understand what these organs do and how they interact and support each other we have to study them individually. Once we do that and still have answers we have to ask ourselves "what is that organ made of, and how does it work?"
It is just the fact that you can look at something and see it, but you cannot understand the full functionality of the object by looking at just one level.

if we keep going into a cycle of what things are made of and what not, we may never answer the more important questions.

 

[ZapperZ]

This thread should not deteriorate into a sociological/philosophical discussion. Please keep in mind where this topic is. If your post does not have actual physics content, it will be deleted without notice.

Zz.

 

[mibaokula]

This thread should not deteriorate into a sociological/philosophical discussion. Please keep in mind where this topic is. If your post does not have actual physics content, it will be deleted without notice.

Zz.

if no-one votes for any of the above theories or have any theories that use sound physics, the thread descends into just that.
ill just try to reply to what anyone says :)