Woit’s unification
Peter Woit has another post on “unification” today, in which he trumpets his latest video that explains nothing. In answer to every serious question, he says he has to do more work on it. That means...
View ArticleTwo problems
There are two fundamental problems with Peter Woit’s programme of “Euclidean Twistor Unification” and the related slogan that “Spacetime is Right-handed”. As they are attempts at founding a theory of...
View ArticleMathemysticism
There are people who argue strongly (and have done on this blog, among others) that the problem with fundamental physics is mathematicism – that is the philosophical standpoint that mathematics rules...
View ArticleSU(2,1)
From time to time I have considered the possibility of using the group SU(2,1) for unifying the Standard Model gauge groups SU(2) of the weak force, and U(1) of electrodynamics. I’ve not had much...
View ArticleSU(2,1) x SU(2,1) x SU(3)
For a while now I have been exploring the options for using the group SU(7,2)/Z_3 for a unified theory of physics, mainly because it has a scalar of order 3 that could plausibly be used for one of the...
View ArticleThe limits of Newtonian physics
The papers of Zenczykowski that Mitchell Porter referred to in a comment on the previous post discuss possible relationships between MOND (Modified Newtonian Dynamics) on astrophysical scales and...
View ArticleThe only game in town
String theory has for decades trumpeted its credentials as “the only game in town” when it comes to unification of the fundamental forces, but these trumpetings have been sounding increasing hollow as...
View ArticleCosmic sudoku
My latest model of the universe is built on 9×9 matrices, divided into 3×3 blocks. Now where have I seen that pattern before? So picture for yourself a sudoku puzzle, and I’ll explain how it encodes...
View ArticleMinimal Unified Models of Physics
Today I want to talk about Minimal Unified Models of Physics, or MUMPs for short. The first attempt at building a MUMP was the Georgi-Glashow model of 1974. Taking the minimalist approach to unifying...
View ArticleNon-standard gravity
There are two long-range forces of nature – electromagnetism and gravity. Electromagnetism is well understood, gravity is not. To explain electromagnetism in a nutshell, there is a basic electric...
View ArticleBackground independence
The Standard Model of Particle Physics is built out of gauge groups and the Dirac algebra. The Dirac algebra describes the coupling of elementary particles to the spacetime background. Ideally, we...
View ArticleSpin 2 or spin 1/2?
Most physicists seem to be convinced that a graviton has spin 2, so if I maintain that gravitons have spin 1/2, then I do have some explaining to do. I once had a lunch meeting with a professional...
View ArticleEinstein-Dirac unification
I know some of you are puzzled that I have put forward loads of different models, and keep on presenting new ones. Which one is right? Probably none of them, but the point is to explore all the...
View ArticleUnification versus synthesis
For 100 years the problem of unification of quantum mechanics with gravity has haunted the theory of physics, with no prospect in sight of exorcising these ghosts any time soon. But perhaps the...
View ArticleHere endeth the lesson
I learnt something yesterday. I learnt that people do not learn from their mistakes. That’s all. What’s the point?
View ArticleAs complicated as possible, or even more so
It is well-known that Einstein’s motto was to make everything as simple as possible, but not more so. Theoretical physicists today work in a completely different way, apparently with the aim of making...
View ArticleSU(6) models
One of the early ideas about unifying strong SU(3) and weak SU(2) was to embed them in the (tensor) product 3 x 2, rather than the (direct) sum 3 + 2. The sum gives SU(3) x SU(2) inside SU(5), which...
View ArticleAnger and hatred
I read somewhere recently that someone famous said, you can be very very angry, but you must never hate. I think this is equivalent to one of the early Christian teachings – love the sinner, hate the...
View ArticleWhy is the Dirac algebra complex?
I may have asked this question before, but it’s like the story of economics exams – the questions are the same every year, but the answers are different. The question about the Dirac algebra is...
View ArticleClifford algebra or Lie algebra?
The first decision one has to make when attempting to build a “Theory Of Everything” is whether to use a Clifford algebra or a Lie algebra. Unification of all the forces requires some kind of...
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