A few days ago, an unlikely individual published a paper on the theory of everything. This guy isn’t a college professor or any typical “Einstein” like figure. And yet, he has struck upon a possible theory of everything based on a mathematical pattern. The Theory of Everything 1.0 Beta was essentially Einstein’s Space-Time continuum. TOE 2 was String Theory. It is still a widespread theory though still contested heatedly. And now, TOE3 arises from a mathematical pattern named E8. It is an intricate pattern of 248 points distributed over 8 dimensions.
To introduce the Theory of Everything…it is the holy grail of physics. It is the quest to find a mathethematical set of formulas that would unite the forces of Electromagnetism, strong force, weak force, and gravity. Standard Model as of now unites 3 out of these 4. It leaves gravity alone, as no one has been able to make gravity “work” with the others.
This individual, Garrett Lisi was studying the E8 pattern and realized that some equations about this structure resembled the equations governing particles. He was able to place particles on each of the points. Any blank points left are supposedly particles that we have not yet discovered, such as the elusive graviton. Using the family of patterns that E8 belongs to, he was able to fill the object. By rotating the pattern using a computer and projecting it into 2 dimensions, he could see different interactions between the particles. He could see gravity-electro-weak interactions between particles. So far, all the observations made using this pattern have fit real-world observations. This model uses nothing but simple math and of course…8 dimensional geometry. However, this appears at first glance to be much more elegant and simple than String Theory. We may be seeing the discovery of the Theory of Everything…or, simply a spectacularly wrong theory that is elegant nonetheless. Read the article on NewScientist