Feb 13, 2008
Posted by Sunny Kalara in Physics Humor | 1 Comment
Happy Valentine’s Day: From Physical Review D Personal Ads
Mature paradigm with firm observational support seeks a fundamental theory in which to be embedded. No loop quantum gravity theories, please. Contact alan@mit.edu.
Elegant theory of everything desires to explore the landscape with a phenomenon in the hope that it will lead to a prediction. Let’s get physical! Contact ed@ias.edu.
In case you are wondering, Alan is Alan Guth of Inflation fame and Ed is Ed Witten of M theory.
From Fermila Today Via Asymptotia, & Often in Error Talk Like a Physicist
Both ”mature paradigm’ and ‘elegant theory of everything’ are suffering from a common delusion- the delusion or illusion being that the redemptive relationship they both seek must be sublimated within a narrow band of knowledge.
One of the central tasks of physics as i understand it, is the identification of higher organising principles in nature. These manifest as emergent laws and phenomena that have triggered major shifts in the evolution of life and the universe since its genesis almost 14 billion years ago.
An overarching Universal Principle is therefore required to integrate and unify the many disparate theories, models and laws upon which our scientific and cultural paradigms are based.
One of the most promising candidates for such a paramount principle must therefore surely be evolution itself, defined at a much broader and deeper level than previously realised. To fit the part of ideal suitor it must encompass our most powerful paradigms to date, including information, quantum and complexity theory, providing not only a basis for the biological processes based on the Darwinian model, but a major overarching framework unifying all processes and phenomena comprising the sub=atomic to the universe at large.
Such a meta-paradigm has recently been defined. Perhaps we can now get on with the nuptials.