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Greatest Mysteries: Is There a Theory of Everything?
LiveScience ^ | August 21, 2007 | Dave Mosher

Posted on 08/21/2007 11:00:12 PM PDT by SunkenCiv

The "standard model" of physics views particles as infinitesimal points, some of which carry basic forces. In spite of the fact that it fails to include gravity and becomes gibberish at high energies, the time-tested theory is the best tool scientists have for explaining physics. "You hear people complain about how good the standard model is," said Michael Turner, a cosmologist at the University of Chicago. "It's an incomplete model, and yet we can't find flaws in it." Turner explained that discovering a mass-inducing particle, called the Higgs boson, remains the next big test for the standard model. If discovered, the heavy particle would definitively show that properties like electromagnetism and radioactivity are really different facets of the same force... The inability so far for string theory to prove up to 11 tiny dimensions exist is a hang-up for many, but Jackson thinks some strings could have been stretched across the universe into "superstrings"--ones large enough to detect in space today... "It's hard to imagine that the universe has two different sets of rules for physics. When does it turn one off and the other one on?" Jackson reasoned. "We know there is quantum mechanics and we know there is gravity, so it seems there should be one overall theory. I'm betting my career that it's string theory."

(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...


TOPICS: Astronomy; Science
KEYWORDS: blackholes; higgsboson; peterhiggs; stringtheory
No Sign of the God Particle
Eugenie Samuel
December 5, 2001
From the masses and interactions of other particles that we know exist, physicists calculated that the Higgs is most likely to have a mass (or energy) of around 80 gigaelectronvolts (GeV). If particle accelerators smash particles together at that energy or higher, it should be possible to make one. This is what members of the Electroweak Working Group at CERN were doing for the 5 years until LEP (the Large Electron Positron Collider) closed down last year. Since then they've been sifting through the data they gathered--and found nothing. They rule out most possible masses for the Higgs, including the ones considered most likely. "It's more likely than not that there is no Higgs," says working group member John Swain of Northeastern University in Boston... [L]ast year researchers from another group at LEP claimed they had found the Higgs... [b]ut they later admitted to having botched their calculations in the heat of the moment... Frank Wilczek, a particle physics theorist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology... says he'll start to get uncomfortable if the Higgs doesn't show up by about 130 GeV. "Then I would have a good long think," he says... David Plane, head of LEP's OPAL experiment, is still certain that the Higgs will eventually be found. "It's just at a higher energy than we're sensitive to." ... "There is nothing remotely as plausible or compelling to replace it," says Wilczek. Supersymmetry, which predicts every particle is paired with a heavier partner, is a popular idea. But LEP's results are even worse news for this theory, as it predicts several Higgs particles. The lightest one would have turned up at even lower energies, and couldn't exist above 130 GeV.

1 posted on 08/21/2007 11:00:14 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
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To: AdmSmith; bvw; callisto; ckilmer; dandelion; FairOpinion; ganeshpuri89; gobucks; KevinDavis; ...

2 posted on 08/21/2007 11:00:50 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Profile updated Monday, August 20, 2007. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: SunkenCiv

I like M-Theory. But, who knows?


3 posted on 08/21/2007 11:05:36 PM PDT by onedoug
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To: SunkenCiv

“Consciousness is the ground of allbeing.” — Dr. Amit Goswami.


4 posted on 08/21/2007 11:21:05 PM PDT by TBP
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To: SunkenCiv

“Consciousness is the ground of all being.” — Dr. Amit Goswami.


5 posted on 08/21/2007 11:21:16 PM PDT by TBP
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To: SunkenCiv

Is there a Theory of Everything? By all means, and Murphy voiced it best: “If something can go wrong, it will.”


6 posted on 08/22/2007 1:05:19 AM PDT by Jack Hammer
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To: SunkenCiv

42


7 posted on 08/22/2007 1:15:50 AM PDT by guitfiddlist (When the 'Rats break out switchblades, it's no time to invoke Robert's Rules.)
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To: SunkenCiv
Geesh. Let's ask someone who understands T.O.E. The universe is a comprehensible place. Ask John Conway or Brian Greene.

Greene:“A unified theory would put us at the doorstep of a vast universe of things that we could finally explore with precision.”

8 posted on 08/22/2007 3:44:53 AM PDT by Daffynition (The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear.)
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To: Daffynition

Until we figure out how to treat time as somethng more than merely a background state dependent upon dimension space, we will not discover the variable expressions of dimension time to calculate using their effects.


9 posted on 08/22/2007 7:37:45 AM PDT by MHGinTN (You've had life support. Promote life support for those in the womb.)
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To: SunkenCiv
Well, I have no reputation at stake, so it would be easy for me to agree with his premise. Three major aspects of the quantum fits nicely into the law of threes. (My term to describe the three aspects of matter, the three aspects of space, and the three aspects of time, which together, can describe the three visible, measurable, and indivisible attributes of time/space/matter (energy in motion) -- which includes all views from the micro to the macro.)

So what if each aspect has its own set of laws? Together, they form the whole and transform nothing-ness into something-ness.

10 posted on 08/22/2007 7:43:00 AM PDT by Eastbound
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To: onedoug

Sure, but A-theory, B-theory, and everything up through L-theory was tried and rejected. ;’)


11 posted on 08/22/2007 8:28:06 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Profile updated Monday, August 20, 2007. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: Daffynition

String Theory, With No Holds Barred [Brian Greene and Lawrence Krauss debate]
ScienceNOW Daily News | March 29, 2007 | John Simpson
Posted on 03/31/2007 10:21:41 PM EDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1810012/posts

Dismantling Space and Time [Review of book by Brian Greene]
Tech Central Station | 09 March 2004 | Kenneth Silber
Posted on 07/15/2004 10:52:36 AM EDT by PatrickHenry
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1171922/posts

Science as Metaphor
Slate | July 6, 2004, at 6:16 AM PT | Amanda Schaffer
Posted on 07/10/2004 6:31:48 PM EDT by ckilmer
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1168961/posts

Build Your Own Universe
NPR | 11/27/06 | Robert Krulwich
Posted on 11/29/2006 7:19:47 PM EST by LibWhacker
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1746101/posts

[and one posted by someone who doesn’t know which field is which]

That Famous Equation and You
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/30/opinion/30greene.html | September 30, 2005 | BRIAN GREENE
Posted on 10/01/2005 11:10:18 PM EDT by GummyIII
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1495076/posts


12 posted on 08/22/2007 8:45:54 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Profile updated Monday, August 20, 2007. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: SunkenCiv
Is There a Theory of Everything?

Sure, but it tends to disappear as soon as the pot wears off.

13 posted on 08/22/2007 8:48:03 AM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: SunkenCiv

Thanks for the ping.

Here’s a cosmology theory that should be worthy of your String Theory AND Catastrophism ping lists...

SubQuantum Kinetics, wide ranging unifying cosmology theory by Dr. Paul LaViolette
THE STARBURST FOUNDATION ^ | January 2007 | Dr. Paul LaViolette

Posted on 08/22/2007 12:00:43 PM PDT by Kevmo

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1884938/posts


14 posted on 08/22/2007 2:08:31 PM PDT by Kevmo (We should withdraw from Iraq — via Tehran. And Duncan Hunter is just the man to get that job done.)
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To: Kevmo

Thanks Kevmo, I’ll check it out. I’m somewhat familiar with LaViolette’s galactic core burst catastrophe idea.


15 posted on 08/22/2007 8:41:37 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Profile updated Monday, August 20, 2007. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: onedoug

ping for later.


16 posted on 08/22/2007 10:17:15 PM PDT by ImaGraftedBranch (...And we, poor fools, demand truth's noon, who scarce can bear its crescent moon.)
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