In Joe Dacy’s
science fiction novel Esquelle and the
lost enclave (2015), which belongs to the hard science fiction genre,
skillfully combined with espionage, adventure and political fiction, and covers
1500 years of future history, including the invention of time travel and the
manipulation of the past, one can find the following quotation:
At this point, the Theory of Everything is actually
the Theory of Not Very Much
Is Joe Dacy II right? Do we think we know a lot, but we know very little? What is this Theory of Everything, with such a grandiose
name?
This name has
been invented by a few physicists and cheered by the press, on the same line as
the name of the God
particle applied to the Higgs boson, possibly discovered in 2012. Yes, I
say possibly, as it is not certain. Although the particle discovered had the predicted
mass and decomposed in some of the predicted particles (not all of them), it has
not yet been proved that the Higgs field exists.
What is
meant by the name of Theory of Everything is that we know
everything about the physical fundamentals of matter, that we do not need God.
Do we
really know everything? In the
previous mentioned post I enumerated some of the things we do not know
about particle physics, about the world of the extremely small. I am giving
them here again, reorganized and expanded with what we do not yet know about the
part of physics that deals with cosmology, the world of the very big.
1. The standard theory of particle
physics depends at least on 19 independent fundamental constants (the masses of
the six quarks, the three leptons and the Higgs boson, plus 9 additional
parameters). If it is confirmed that neutrinos have mass, seven more constants
would be needed (for a total of 26). Moreover, the standard cosmological theory
depends on 6 adjustable and two fixed parameters. To this must be added the
fundamental constants of physics (the speed of light, the gravitational
constant, Planck's constant, and a few more). In total, our physical theories depend at least
on 40 independent parameters. Many physicists think that they are too
many.
Peter Higgs |
2. The standard theory of particle
physics explains the existence of mass (in most of the particles that have it)
through the Higgs field theory, which predicted the existence of the Higgs
boson. However, according to this theory, neutrinos should have no mass. It was
later found that all three types of neutrinos can transform into one another, for
those detected coming from the sun are only a third of what they should be. The
others, presumably, have changed species. This means that neutrinos must have mass,
contrary to Higgs theory, although it would be very small.
3. We do not have a standard theory,
but two: quantum mechanics, which applies to the world of the very small, and
general relativity, which applies to the world of the very large. Three of the
four fundamental interactions (electromagnetic, strong and weak) are handled by
quantum mechanics, although their full unification has not been achieved. The
fourth (gravitation) is under the study of general relativity, which is
incompatible with quantum mechanics. Its corresponding gauge boson (the
graviton) has not yet been detected.
4. We do not have a satisfactory
explanation of why the universe is made of matter rather than antimatter. Or, what at first sight seems more
reasonable, there should be no matter or antimatter at all.
5. There is much talk about dark
energy and dark matter. It is surmised that the first could be a new
fundamental interaction and the second would consist of unknown particles.
These particles and that interaction (if they exist, which is not certain) are
out of the standard theory of particle physics as it is now.
6. The standard theory of particle
physics predicts that vacuum energy (also called zero point energy, which
plays an important role in Joe Dacy‘s novel) must be infinite. As this result
cannot be sustained, certain approximations have been devised (gauge theories),
that replace absolute by relative values and thus avoid the infinite, but
basically this solution only hides the problem. Consequently, the
standard theory of particle physics has not been proved to be mathematically
consistent.
Do we really
know everything? As we see, calling the standard theory of particle physics the Theory of Everything is, at best, somewhat
optimistic. I’ll end up with a few more relevant quotations from Joe Dacy’s novel:
They took a beautiful vase,
smashed it, named all the pieces, and called it the Theory of Everything.
The 'March of Science' is more
like the lurching path of a stumbling drunk.
If I can invent my own
mathematics, I can prove or disprove any theory imaginable.
Manuel Alfonseca
From nothing nothing comes. --- Always fascinating to see what the people who deal in smashing things to bits come up with. The degree of certainty seems well less than 1.0
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