In the game, Rock Surfboard Scissors, rock beats surfboard.

Rock must be pretty badass in “Rock, Surfboard, Scisscors,” then, because I would imagine it beats scissors as well.

> In the game, Rock Surfboard Scissors, rock beats surfboard.

Then scissors beats rock? The chairs in your E8 room are clearly stacked…

Wow that dude is prety slcik isnt he!

RT
http://www.anonymizer.us.tc

love the simplicity………the details will work themselves out:) unity of energy:) brilliant:)

a singluar convergence point:)

much love thanks for the thoughts:)

very much in line with my recent impressions:)

Anonymizer spam link beats rock!

I think it got so much hype because he was a surfer. Maybe they wanted to show that anyone has a chance to figure this thing called life out..

I’m just misunderstood.

I’m not educated enough in this area to have any real understanding of this although I do find this sort of thing fascinating from a “lay person’s” perspective.

The graphic of the E8 is awesome.

Full paper here :
http://arxiv.org/abs/0905.2658

I’ll go with Lisi. His theory is elegant and symmetrical. Somebody gonna be right, somebody gonna be wrong. Not one damn soul on the planet knows which is which. Only time will tell.

My confidence in Garrett Lisi’s E8 theory has not, in any way, been reduced by this article or by this link: http://arxiv.org/abs/0905.2658.

I think Garrett Lisi is a genius and Skip is a little jealous of Garretts’ work, life and fame. What is the calculation for sour grapes? E8 makes more sense than any unified theory out there.

sysin3, Daniel, & De –

I must admit I find your comments a little strange. It’s not about jealousy or confidence or your gut feeling of what makes sense. It’s not about being on someone’s side. It’s about what’s demonstrably correct. At this point the scientific record contains both Lisi’s work and the record of flaws therein. The way the science will move forward is to take a look at what those flaws are and think about what sort of theory would account also for those. The whole “I’m a surfer” and “I’m a rock climber” stuff is just playing to the news media.

Many beautiful theories have been slain by ugly facts. We must march on.

This may be unfair, but I am always frustrated when physicists simplify their mathematical theories for us lowly laypeople, with puzzling analogies (metaphors?) such as the room with furniture in it. Unfortunately, we are left with an image of an upside down chair in a living room, and we still don’t know what they’re talking about. The significance is elusive. I wish they would not speak down so much to the public, but rather, try broader methods of communicating.

To emc – Once upon a time there was a very intelligent guy in the field of quantum theory stuff by the name of Richard P. Feynman . He could explain most anything in his field in terms the layman would understand.
He understood the KISS principle , got the Nobel Prize, and even made life easier for many of his peers.

He also, amidst a panel of stuffy experts, figured out what went wrong with a Space Shuttle when it blew up when everybody else was scratching their head. I think he used an origami figure. It was about “O” rings.

So it is possible for the language of the elite scientist to explain most of the obscure things in terms we, the uninformed, can understand . Often I tend to think they’d rather we didn’t comprehend, thus a jargon foreign to the layman.
Sometimes too, some of these science wizards are not totally aware that anyone other than another scientist would be interested in what they have to say. Insular lot, they can be.

for emc – last sentence above should be “totally unaware” ….

I agree that when I read/hear about mathematics I hadn’t learned described in metaphors I can safely say that I don’t understand, and I immediately look for a different source of information. On the other hand, these metaphors may be how the mathematician sees the concept–perhaps a proof inspired this vision–but the fact that it’s not rigorous cannot be overlooked. Hence these authors expect the unlikely; that is, they expect that the readers will draw the relevant connection and not be left envisioning the oddly arranged chairs in a room. The reason why this is impossible for lay readers is that they haven’t been (1) exposed to that mathematics and (2) exposed to other mathematics in which that analogy could be drawn so that they could see what types of manipulations would lead to the odd arrangement or orientation of chairs in the first place.

have we reached the point now, where the difference between science and math isn’t even appreciated?

math is axiomatic. you disprove an incorrect statement with symbols inscribed on paper. science is empirical, you disprove an incorrect statement with DATA obtained from the actual, physical universe.

make falsifiable predictions, or call yourself a theologian instead of a “physicist”, please.

Unfortunately, the tone of Distler and Garibaldi’s paper is that of jealousy.
Perhaps, their critical comments will be useful.

Lisi deserves a lot of credit for putting forth an interesting theory. He acknowledges
that the theory needs to address the rest of the physics issues and that takes time
and a lot of work.

Whether LIsi’s work ends up being the correct path to a GUT or not, it is certainly meritorious.

everything is subjective; math receives no exemptions