The Theory of Everything

When played together, they compose the symphony of the universe. Or at least, that's the theory. There's a problem, though. The strings have too much range. So much, in fact, that for string theory to agree with the established laws of physics and mathematics, there must be not three but at least ten dimensions (including time) that are curled up and tucked away. And because each of these multidimensional landscapes requires a different string tuning, there are potentially billions and billions of different versions of string theory relating to billions and billions of different universes. Then there's the problem of testing string theory. That's how science works. We hypothesize, then we test... So here's the latest tally: Number of years since string theory be came dominant: 20. Number of potential string-theory solutions: 10500 (the number of atoms in the galaxy squared and then squared again). Number of testable theories: 0... If the problem with string theory, as some critics claim, is that it's a closed-minded boys club whose lifetime members hopelessly shuffle and redeal the same deck of equations ad nauseum, then the solution may be found at the Jane Bond, a bar in the staid Canadian college town of Waterloo.

Eighteen months to go. And now some nights Nima Arkani-Hamed can't sleep. Because in eighteen months someone will flip a switch in something called the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. And when that switch is flipped, billions of protons will fly around a seventeen-mile loop at nearly the speed of light until they smash together hard, harder than any subatomic particles have ever been smashed together on earth. It's the greatest, most anticipated, most expensive experiment in the history of mankind. And if Arkani-Hamed is right, it could help prove that the laws that govern the universe at every scale—from the smallest quarks to the largest black holes—are one and the same. Or else, of course, it could prove that Arkani-Hamed is full of sh*t.

I recently watched a program about the construction of this thing. Fascinating that the Europeans could get together and do something like this. Alot of abrasiveness between the English engineer, the French guy, and the Italian overseer. All I can say is, thank God the English are there. I predict one of two things when this gets switched on. A) Answers to some of our most fundamental questions, along with more fundamental questions, or B) The Earth will be destroyed by a tear in the fabric of Space-Time. Of course, we'll never know about that...

Heh... of course, if there were ever a tear in the space-time continuum, the destruction would be carried backward and forward throughout time, so it's safe to conclude that I read way too much science fiction when I was younger. ;')

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