Nobel Laureat Stewen Weinberg always emphasized his hostility to Philosophy and Religion.

 

But "Dreams of Final Theory" is not Philosophical idea?

My be even Religous idea? Because it grounded on Belief such Theory does exist.

Belief or an educated speculation based on theoretical evidence and mathematical rhetoric?

 

This is what makes it different to religion.

Belief or an educated speculation based on theoretical evidence and mathematical rhetoric?

 

This is what makes it different to religion.

 

 

No phenomenon is a real phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon.

John A. Wheeler

No phenomenon is a real phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon.

John A. Wheeler

 

Ok, I agree with that. My point was that the idea of some unification scheme was not just pulled out of "thin air". There is some "evidence" for example that the running coupling constants of the standard model unite at a high enough energy. Also, finding symmetries and unification seem to go together. For example, think about the unification of electric and magnetic phenomena. Central to this was Lorentz symmetry and (not appreciated at the time) gauge symmetry.

 

Other "evidence" comes from the AdS-CFT correspondence and the Kawai–Lewellen–Tye (KLT) relations which show that gravity and gauge theory have a lot more in common than you can "see" from just looking at the respective Lagrangians. Also closed strings must have the graviton in their spectrum.

 

All together, based on past success and what we know about QFT and string theories it seems likely that one should be able to unite the electroweak and the strong force (using SUSY) and then hopefully gravity.

 

But honestly, no-one can say for sure if this is possible.

the electroweak and the strong force (using SUSY) and then hopefully gravity.

 

 

According to Andrei Sakharov, Gravity is different matter "metric elasticity of space"

 

and integral effect Fermi and Bose fields.See my thread.

 

Other explanation: Effect of Metasymmetry

Edited August 19, 200817 yr by Yuri Danoyan

Why do you always quote other people?

 

I know what general relativity says about the nature of the gravitational field.

 

One thing I find fascinating is that ("traditional") gauge theories are not so different from gravity. Classically, we see this using geometry to describe the theories. Then, in quantum theories we have the KLT relations and other similar things.

 

Of course there are some important big differences, but it is the similarities that got me interested in differential geometry.

Why do you always quote other people?

 

Other people are my smart advisers.

Andrei Sakharov died in 1989. How is he advising you?

 

What I mean, is there is little point quoting someone famous about very well known results and ideas.

Some times idea survive his authors

 

Quote for me is starting points for development....

Edited August 19, 200817 yr by Yuri Danoyan

Sounds closer to appeal to authority, but okay...

It also potentially becomes an attempt to present the quote as an absolute truth, absent any context that might limit its applicability.

 

Phenomena may not be real until they are observed, but theory can tell you where to look. That saves a lot of fumbling around.

an attempt to present the quote as an absolute truth,

 

 

i am not so naive...

Burton Richter,Nobel Laureat in Physics 1976

"Theory in particle physics: Theological speculation versus practical knowledge",Physics Today 2006, October,p.8

"The general trend of the path to understanding has been reductionist. We explain our world in terms of a generally decreasing number of assumptions, equations, and constants, although sometimes things have gotten more complicated before they became simpler. Aristotle would have recognized only what he called the property of heaviness and we call gravity. As more was learned, new forces had to be absorbed—first magnetic, then electric. Then we realized that the magnetic and electric forces were really the electromagnetic force. The discovery of radioactivity and the nucleus required the addition of the weak and strong interactions. Grand unified theories have pulled the number back down again. Still, the general direction is always toward the reductionist—understanding complexity in terms of an underlying simplicity."

http://ptonline.aip.org/journals/doc/PHTOAD-ft/vol_59/iss_10/8_1.shtml