It is the first Friday of the New Year, and given a lot of predictions in the general press that have been not just gloomy but downright apocalyptic, it seems like the perfect time to start off this year with some rather amazing and good news. Actually, let me put a caveat on that last statement since I think it is good news. So what is it?
As the headline states, a researcher for the Minneapolis, MN-based research consultancy Pixidis named Tom Whitney has in the words of his employers, “Achieved the Holy Grail quest of modern physical science: the discovery of Einstein's famed unified field equation. Sought by thousands of scientists around the world, this equation reveals the ultimate blueprint running the universe.”
Solving for the REALLY BIG PICTURE
For those of you who like me are fans of the immensely popular U.S. TV sitcom “The Big Bang (News - Alert) Theory,” the terminology of the chief brainiac and social misfit character physicist Dr. Sheldon Cooper (played by award-winning actor Jim Parsons (News - Alert)) is by now somewhat familiar. Even if we don’t understand what “string theory” is, we know it is important. We also know it has been a key to Dr. Cooper’s quest to solve the issue which it Mr. Whitney has apparently solved. While I feel somewhat for the writers of the show, this is big.
Let’s start with the context. The unified field theory (UFT) equation was theorized to exist by Einstein, but it was just theorized and despite three decades of work by Einstein he never cracked the code. Whitney, uniting hundreds of years of multidisciplinary science in a single, fell swoop appears after roughly 12 years of effort to have figured it out. As Pixidis, explains is their revelation of this achievement, it is “Akin to finding the missing piece of a massive jigsaw puzzle worked on by tens of thousands of scientists over centuries of time to create a single, big-picture understanding of the universe. The discovery is a road map to a whole new scientific future for humanity.”
Many thought that Einstein was a bit mad to believe the UFT existed, but recent advances in string theory put physicists on an intense search mission, which Whitney's discovery seems to have put to an end. It has happened not with a big bang but certainly not with a whimper either judging by the early blogosphere comments on the announcement.
"I am thrilled, of course," Whitney said, "but I cannot emphasize enough how this is the result of thousands of dedicated scientists who pursued the deepest truth of nature. Without their passionate commitment, none of this would be possible—or meaningful—to anyone."
As the discovery of DNA revealed the blueprint of all organic life, this discovery illuminates the hidden energetic blueprint governing the entire universe—including organic life, inert matter, physical forces and fields like gravity and magnetism. This is why it is half-jokingly referred to as the "theory of everything."
How big a deal is this?
It should be noted that physicists by their nature are not exactly prone to hyperbole. In fact, they are a skeptical lot. Nevertheless, Pixidis is saying is that this discovery really has enormous implications. They say in the long-term it opens the theoretical door to the massive amounts of hidden energy required for deep-space travel. More importantly, they believe:
“The model reveals the pathway beyond energy entirely—clearly showing the way out of the global warming disaster wrought by human energy consumption.”
I have provided the emphasis, but we are dealing with very big science here to say the least that blurs the lines in some ways between science and religion. The reason is that Einstein theorized almost 100 years ago that the universe was governed by a single, foundational law with absolute causal authority over all of nature’s laws. It is the notion of “causal authority” that is at the heart of the blurring of lines between belief in science and the science behind belief.
As noted above, this was not an overnight project. It took Whitney 10,000 hours of research over 12 years to see the foundational connections between the core equations governing nature, and then united them into a single field core equation from which every force of nature falls neatly into place.
A free PDF, How Jesus Walked on Water, details the discovery references the work of over 30 leading scientists across multiple fields. Pixidis is saying that the model does in fact go beyond pure science by combining physics, psychology and spirituality to propose a model of how Jesus walked on water.
As a lay person, while I find the news fascinating, it is difficult to explain and am delighted Pixidis has a knack for making this accessible to a broad audience by saying things like: “Einstein’s theory of relativity generalized Newton’s gravity equations to the four unified dimensions of spacetime, so Whitney’s equation generalizes Einstein’s E=mc2 to the ten unified dimensions of the universe believed to exist by string theorists….The unified equation details the repeating, master pattern that maintains consistent energetic relationships across each dimension, revealing Einstein’s E=mc2 as the 3D version of a universal ratio that scales across the multidimensional structure of the cosmos.”
I don’t know about you, but I actually know what they are talking about, and the pdf., is equally as understandable.
Finally, while this seems to be the end, it is more like the end of the beginning. Now that the equation has been “discovered” it still will need at some point to be proved experimentally. Whitney has a firm conviction his findings will stand the test of time (pardon my pun). This is based on his belief that the unified field equation is correct because major equations in physics flow simply and organically from it. Plus, it unites not only the four foundational forces of nature in a single, master equation (as Einstein postulated, but resolves long-standing discrepancies between the two major theories in modern physics—relativity and quantum mechanics. In short, there remains some work to do.
The other big news here is that we all have one less thing to worry about. It appears there may in fact be one eternal truth. Whether it was divinely constructed obviously remains a matter of debate, but the fact that it exists is in a way very comforting by itself.
TGIF and a happy new year indeed.