This goes to the great truth. All to often those outside the 'intelligentsia' of their day come out with great ideas.

http://donoevil.propeller.com/story/2008/01/04/...

Although the work of 39 year old Garrett Lisi still has a way to go to convince the establishment, let alone match the achievements of Albert Einstein, the two do have one thing in common: Einstein also began his great adventure in theoretical physics while outside the mainstream scientific establishment, working as a patent officer, though failed to achieve the Holy Grail, an overarching explanation to unite all the particles and forces of the cosmos.

I've heard nickel and dime, and always used to assume that was 5 and 10 dollar bags.

I think they had to change the terminology because a bag costs about $25, and if you say a quarter bag, there's a confusion between weight and price. inflation.

all pure speculation, of course. theory unsubstantiated by personal experience

nothing to do with nothing, but I saw the result of a pot deal gone bad, and a friend of mine got his hand cut pretty bad with a razor. seemed the guy really needed that weed to mellow out, and didn't feel like paying. I doubt it was over a confusion of terminology

just an old memory resurfacing

the guy is a somewhat talented guitarist, and lucky for him sustained no tendon damage. meat of the thumb[palm held out clasping baggie]

This gentleman may have stumbled upon the theory of everything, or he may have simply discovered a very elegant set of equations that appear to be meaningful. String theory appears to agree with many sub atomic observations as well but it has yet to be proven. Caution is the order of the day. In science, it is fairly rare that the heretic is correct. When it happens, it is a big event and receives more attention that the more mundane and incremental achievements that are far more typical but not so romantic.

The key to proving his theory will be if the new particle accelerator can produce any of the particles that his model predicts.

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=1...

The general feeling is that there may be something here. Hey! This looks exciting.

Kary Mullis and the DNA polymerase chain reaction.

Many of the great discoveries of science came down to one "Holy Crap!" moment, or the other alternative, "Oh $hit!!!" - that is, totally by accident.

The glue in Post-It Notes was a failed experiment. Scotchguard came from a dropped sample tube on a new pair of Keds. Photochemical reactions were discovered because an absent minded researcher left a beaker on his office window and forgot about it. The list is endless.

The only way Exxon would pay for any new scientific research is if that research would lead to making the entire world ignore global warming and make the IPCC disappear.

What's more exciting is that perhaps this will lead to a new scientific age and perhaps put companies like Exxon out of business. One can only hope.

The review of the paper you posted is a nice sumary, and much more balanced.

Regardless, the debate is likely to be both intense and lively.

While the science of his "Luboš Motl" retort is way above my head.

Also he has a wiki page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luboš_Motl

From a quick google search he has a rep of attacking anyone who disagrees with string theory, his attacks are personal, he had a review of a book 'by lee smolin' deleted from Amazon.

He strike me as someone who has found his theory and thats the end of the matter(not very scientific)

A small side bar- from a comment neartthe end of his wiki it seems he also 1 of few who supported Harvard president Lawrence Summers's that (basically) men are better at science & engineering than women, he left Harvard not long after this and went back to the Czech Rep. and currently, like the surfer dude, has no University affiliation.

That, of course, is why our cars are now powered by a Mr. Fusion that we can drop any garbage into and they fly. We no longer are beholden to OPEC countries for oil, and of course why we'd never think of invading them.

It's a link to Luboš Motl's review of Lisi's paper that he posted on his blog. Luboš Motl is a theoretical physicist best known for his contributions to string theory and theoretical quantum physics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lubos_Motl

I imagine that in the near future there'll be more string theory proponents attacking Lisi's paper, even though he hasn't even submitted it to a peer reviewed journal, at least as far as I know.

I haven't read Lisi's paper yet, but I've found a more palatable and what I thought was a more balanced review of his hypothesis at http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2007/11/theore...

Hope you find it helpful.

Do you think it would help you if it was an open book quiz?

I don't know. The theories I used to come up with when toasted never seemed to hold together very well the next day.

I've seen some great math used to describe the "the reality we live in" that ended up being a complete red herring. Just because it's elegant doesn't mean it's mathematically correct.

I think this theory will need to withstand some empirical data, which would likely come when the LHC comes online, as the article suggests.

The PHD in particle physics probably helped a bit!!!

I salute this man for his courage and Initiative especially since it is outside of consensus based (Group think and support) of the scientific community "Base".

Hey Neophile ya' think Exxon is paying his surfing bills?

(Do they still call them nickel and dime bags or did I just show my age a bit there?)

From the abstract:

All fields of the standard model and gravity are unified as an E8 principal bundle connection. A non-compact real form of the E8 Lie algebra has G2 and F4 subalgebras which break down to strong su(3), electroweak su(2) x u(1), gravitational so(3,1), the frame-Higgs, and three generations of fermions related by triality. The interactions and dynamics of these 1-form and Grassmann valued parts of an E8 superconnection are described by the curvature and action over a four dimensional base manifold.

http://arxiv.org/abs/0711.0770

Some elegant mathematics here...

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/38718

I'll bet there is probably an article in the Onion archives with a similar title.

Now that is MY kind of physicist!!

So long "Eureka", we'll remember you fondly.

Only one hint then: Ding dong, as in doorbell, idea. Used to describe a REALLY COOL idea.

(You can figure out the rest...)

Brosef, What a Cooleo, Gnarmax Ding Dong! ;D