saint_monkey

I was JUST chatting with Mystery about this, and here it pops up on the news feeds.

Garrett Lisi's theory that the universe is remarkably simple and "mandala shaped" like the mathematical construct E8, has fallen to good old fashioned math. The physicist that disproved the theory has a pretty good quote about why it doesn't work:

'You can think of E8 as a room, and the four subgroups related to the four fundamental forces of nature as furniture, let's say chairs,' Garibaldi explains. 'It's pretty easy to see that the room is big enough that you can put all four of the chairs inside it. The problem with 'the theory of everything' is that the way it arranges the chairs in the room makes them non-functional.'

I like it when physics dudes dumb it down for me, because I have no hope of ever understanding the math. Furniture, I understand.

I'm sad to see this theory go down, it satisfied Occam's razor, and that's a rare thing. Next time, Garrett should posit that the universe is shaped like a burrito, EVERYTHING fits in a burrito.

In an unrelated story (can anything be "unrelated" when the UNIVERSE is concerned?)

Some other gang of scientists entirely, believe that the universe may actually be a giant hologram of a different shape altogether, and the issues arising from mathematical irregularites that led scientists (in general) to posit crazy theories about the universe, (AKA Quantum Mechanics,) may actually be a case of things going "out of focus."

This makes so much sense that I am going to use this excuse whenever possible:

"I am sorry, the holographic shape of the universe has caused you to go out of focus, therefore I am eating the rest of your burrito."