An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything

By most measures the shape E8, shown above ([and previously]([link])), is the most elegant and complex figure known to mathematics. It is also the inspiration for one man’s comprehensive theory of everything.

Garrett Lisi is 39. He splits his time between surfing in Hawaii and snowboarding in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. He has a doctorate but is not affiliated with any university. “It’s hard to figure out the secrets of the universe when you’re trying to figure out where you and your girlfriend are going to sleep next month” he told the Telegraph. Yet he published a paper this month, “An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything,” and his ideas are provoking interest around the world.

His explanation traces the seemingly erratic nature of fundamental particles to the symmetries of E8, a simplified representation of an even more complex 248-dimensional object. “My brain exploded with the implications and the beauty of the thing,” he told New Scientist, recalling when he first made the connection between his theories and the shape of E8. “I thought: ‘Holy crap, that’s it!’” Thus far all the particle interactions predicted by his model correspond with observations in the real world.

It is one of the most compelling unification models I’ve seen in many, many years.

Lee Smolin, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

When the Large Hadron Collider opens in May of next year, Lisi hopes his theories will help lead to the discovery of some 20 particles he predicts must exist, particles that so far live only as gaps in a kind of periodic table of particles, all of his construction.

ARTICLE [“Surfer dude stuns physicists (…)”] (Telegraph) ARTICLE [“Is mathematical pattern the theory of everything?”] (New Scientist)

PAPER [Garrett Lisi - “An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything”]