The Economist on the surfboard Theory of Everything

“A shape could describe the cosmos and all it contains”, the Economist announces, profiling the claim of a surfer dude with science cred to have discovered a theory of everything:

ONE of the mysteries of the universe is why it should speak the language of mathematics. Numbers and the relationships between them are, after all, just abstract reasoning. Yet mathematics has shown itself to be particularly adept at describing both the contents of the universe and the forces that act on them. Now comes a paper which argues that one branch of the subject—geometry—could form the basis of all the laws of physics.

Reach for your hat whenever someone claims that a simple idea explains absolutely everything.

Personally, I think it will turn out to be a crock, and I’ll be hearing about Paris Hilton long after I’m hearing about this. But this certainly shows the level of anxiety out there to find a Theory of Everything.

Did you see where this surfer dude has solved the riddle of the universe?

Eat your hearts out, pocket-protected physics nerds:

He has high hopes that his new theory could provide what he says is a "radical new explanation" for the three decade old Standard Model, which weaves together three of the four fundamental forces of nature: the electromagnetic force; the strong force, which binds quarks together in atomic nuclei; and the weak force, which controls radioactive decay.

Sometimes the surf's up:

The reason for the excitement is that Lisi's model also takes account of gravity, a force that has only successfully been included by a rival and highly fashionable idea called string theory, one that proposes particles are made up of minute strings, which is highly complex and elegant but has lacked predictions by which to do experiments to see if it works.

And sometimes it isn't:

But some are taking a cooler view. Prof Marcus du Sautoy, of Oxford University and author of Finding Moonshine, told the Telegraph: "The proposal in this paper looks a long shot and there seem to be a lot things still to fill in."

And a colleague Eric Weinstein in America added: "Lisi seems like a hell of a guy. I'd love to meet him. But my friend Lee Smolin is betting on a very very long shot."

Well, if it's still around when Paris Hilton is no longer front page news ...

A friend writes,

I don't know how hard to laugh at this, but it seems to be part of a trend in science these days: "Hold the presses! Everything you know is wrong." (Except Darwinian evolution, of course.)