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To: E8crossE8

Other than the inertial-less drive (forgotten about that one!), yours is the only interesting post on the thread.

Personally, I like knot theory (not to be confused with string theory) as an elegant Grand Unified Theory. That or Pharaoh being the earthly avatar of the sun god Ra; whatever gets the chicks, you know.


33 posted on 06/15/2010 10:48:19 PM PDT by mrreaganaut (When can the Martian Republic declare independence from Earth?)
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To: mrreaganaut

Well, both knot theory and string theory are hypothesized approaches to incorporating a quantum-mechanically consistent description of the gravitational force into a description of the *other* three forces. Neither knot theory nor string theory are usually referred to as “grand unified theories.” The phrase “grand unified theory (GUT)” is usually meant to refer to expanding the Standard Model (which, strictly speaking, unifies TWO forces, namely electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force - that is why the original Standard Model is also referred to as “electroweak theory”) in such a way as to incoporate the third of the four known forces, namely, the strong nuclear force. So, the Standard Model (the electroweak theory) describes in a unified way the electromagnetic and weak nuclear forces (two of the four forces), quantum chromodynamics (QCD) explains the strong nuclear force, models that combine both QCD and electroweak theory are referred to as “grand unified theories” (thus describing three of the four forces), and string theory, knot theory and other approaches, are attempts to weave all four forces (i.e., including gravity) together in a single decription that is consistent with both quantum mechanics and relativity. Not easy.


37 posted on 06/16/2010 3:56:32 AM PDT by E8crossE8
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