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- Newsgroups: sci.physics
- Path: sparky!uunet!usc!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!galois!riesz!jbaez
- From: jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez)
- Subject: Re: Question of Theory of Everything (or Grand Unified theory)
- Message-ID: <1992Sep7.040445.19839@galois.mit.edu>
- Sender: news@galois.mit.edu
- Nntp-Posting-Host: riesz
- Organization: MIT Department of Mathematics, Cambridge, MA
- References: <1992Sep7.022904.15484@nntpd.lkg.dec.com>
- Date: Mon, 7 Sep 92 04:04:45 GMT
- Lines: 31
-
- Don't ever believe anyone who claims that there WILL BE a shocking
- scientific advance 10-20 years from now. Scientific breakthroughs are
- by definition unexpected until they happen. The fans of superstrings
- were very optimistic about 5 years ago and some of the more bold, or
- if I may say so, arrogant, claimed that shortly we would have a fully
- functioning "Theory of Everything". The relative lack of hubbub about
- string theory in the popular press lately is an indication of what has
- happened in the meantime - lots of good mathematics but sort of a
- quagmire when it comes to working out the physics. In particular,
- people had been excited for a while when it looked like there was an
- almost unique sensible string theory, but now this no longer seems
- true.
-
- I have my own prejudices about what are the best directions to look
- for a theory of everything, and if you had been reading sci.physics
- for the last year you would have seen me go on and on about them.
- Briefly, I favor the Ashtekar/Rovelli/Smolin loop variables approach
- to quantum gravity, and its extensions to treat other forces. Check
- out the "Science and the Citizen" column of the latest Scientific
- American (September 1992) for a nice introduction. I am spending all
- my time working on this stuff myself, however, so I am hardly an
- unbiased party! On good days I think, "Yeah, maybe in 10 or 20 years
- we'll work out a theory of all the forces!" But that's just my
- natural optimism and good spirits. We may never have a theory of
- everything - indeed even if we get one we will never know for sure
- that it is true - but all we can say for now is that physics is full, very
- full, of mysterious puzzles!
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