Apologies to the other 2loggers, as I begin on a quest of numbers and nerdery. But this is just too much for me to resist.
Remember all that hoopla about that scientific theory that was supposed to revolutionize modern science. You know, the one that scientists universally and uncritically declared true, even though it didn't quite vibe with most peoples' intuitions. It won numerous awards. Well, as occasionally happens in science, this theory may have suddenly found it superceded by an even better theory. No, I'm not talking about ManBearPig... that's still true. I'm talking about string theory.
A physicist with no university connections recently published an innovative theory of everything that, in many respects, is WAY BETTER than string theory. For starters, it only has the four dimensions we're familiar with (three directions + time), as opposed to the 11 dimensions super-string theory diddles with. Secondly, it's testable. You can't put too fine of point on this. String theory, more or less, is a restatement of our current understanding of physics. You can't get any new information out of it, just different ways of attacking the same old problems. It has no predictive power. This new theory, however, can be proven true or false in an experimental setting. This means theorists and experimenters can both work separately to prove whether or not it is true. And if it's proven true, then we'll have advanced our knowledge of the universe.
The best part about this is the unlikely source it came from. He's a real life version of Peter Gallagher from the O.C., a hyper-intelligent surfer out on the west coast (AKA best coast).
AND, his name is Gerrit. He misspelled it Garrett, but I can forgive that.
Here's where 2loggers are going to hate me. I've downloaded the original paper, and I'm making a goal of reading through it to see if I can figure it out, and 2logging about it. The key lies in E8 manifolds, pictured above. Unfortunately, advanced geometry is not my strong suit, but it looks closely related enough to linear algebra that I should be able to figure it out.
For the poets out there, however, I intend to post pretty pictures while I do it. How does the picture above make you feel (click on it for a bigger version).
