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" Surfer dude stuns physicists with theory of everything"

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A_T_K
Posts: 1403 - Karma: 12
im pretty hiigh, but this is pretty sick. and check out the pic, that shits nuts.

Click for larger image
Nov 16 2007 4:15PM
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steevner
Posts: 4502 - Karma: 47
care to post the article?
Nov 16 2007 4:19PM
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A_T_K
Posts: 1403 - Karma: 12
haha, touche.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2007/11/14/scisurf114.xml
Nov 16 2007 4:21PM
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Microcosm
Posts: 4765 - Karma: 153
I saw this on digg a few days ago. I hate the asshole who made the wrote the title and included "surfer dude" to play on the stereotype of surfers being morons. Not true at all.
Nov 16 2007 4:21PM
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Melvs
Posts: 15174 - Karma: 480
Key fact people are forgettting... He spent winters skiing in Tahoe.  Dude is my hero for that, and because I've always thought the physicists were going the wrong direction with adding tons and tons of dimensions to try adn justify everything, when we know everything works in just the three dimensions we exist in.  This guy made everything work in just the known dimensions, hence the 'simple' part, it's awesome.  hopefully this leads to the theory being confirmed because so much can come of this if it works out.
Nov 16 2007 4:45PM
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Skipig25
Posts: 10729 - Karma: 256
best quote ever

"Being poor sucks," Lisi says. "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."
Nov 16 2007 4:57PM
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Tinga
Posts: 11349 - Karma: 2,333
David Ritz Finkelstein at the Georgia Institute of Technology haha i found this dudes hilarious as hell.
Nov 16 2007 4:57PM
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IcePointa
Posts: 1879 - Karma: 19

this deserves much hopeless consideration from me

Nov 16 2007 5:06PM
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TheQuailman
Posts: 7381 - Karma: 144

My teacher told us not to use sparknotes cuz a bunch of college kids get high go on the computer and write them.  Which brings me to my point of why would you get high, go on newschoolers, and post a newspaper article.

Nov 16 2007 5:07PM
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user098123
Posts: 6072 - Karma: 18
"Lisi's inspiration lies in the most elegant and intricate shape known to mathematics, called E8 - a complex, eight-dimensional mathematical pattern with 248 points first found in 1887, but only fully understood by mathematicians this year after workings, that, if written out in tiny print, would cover an area the size of Manhattan."

Haha, that would suck if you made a mistake somewhere.
Nov 16 2007 5:11PM
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IcePointa
Posts: 1879 - Karma: 19

"There are 205,263,363,600 entries in all, each a mathematical expression called a polynomial....The result of the E8 calculation, which contains all the information about E8 and its representations, is 60 gigabytes in size."

Unfuckingbelievable

Nov 16 2007 5:26PM
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skibio5
Posts: 1044 - Karma: 31
this is pretty badass, props to the surfer.
Nov 16 2007 5:27PM
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TheQuailman
Posts: 7381 - Karma: 144
They give him so much low credit for being a surfer.  Hes obviously a smart guy that wanted to spend his life doing something he loved.  I respect this guy ridiculously.
Nov 16 2007 5:37PM
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Aclique_Clothing
Posts: 1807 - Karma: 19
OK sooo im confused, te guy made a pattern thing>? how is that great?? someone give me the sparknotes version of this
Nov 16 2007 5:58PM
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caylorswift
Posts: 10695 - Karma: 312
read the title of the article.

he figured out the universe, and he surfs, and that pattern thing was made to represent what he thinks an atom looks like. i'd assume anyways.

he's poor, and hes a baller.
Nov 16 2007 6:13PM
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SHastatahoe
Posts: 3414 - Karma: 19
 Kary Mullis, the man behind PCR, the technique that allows us to cut up DNA, and read genomes, was known as a stoner/surfer.  His book; Click for larger image flaunts this fact.  I havent read it, but I heard that after he got his Nobel Prize he left science. 
Nov 16 2007 6:17PM
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CabDoctor
Posts: 602 - Karma: 9
The shape isn't something he drew rather its a way of visually representing a family of closely related structures.  This one is know as an E8  the most complex know in the world

This :

"E8 has rank 8 (the maximum number of mutually commutative degrees of freedom), and dimension 248 (as a manifold). The vectors of the root system are in eight dimensions, and are specified later in this article. The Weyl group of E8, which acts as a symmetry group of the maximal torus by means of the conjugation operation from the whole group, is of order 696729600.
E8 is unique among simple Lie groups in that its non-trivial representation of smallest dimension is the adjoint representation (of dimension 248) acting on the Lie algebra E8 itself.
There is a Lie algebra En for every integer n≥3, which is infinite dimensional if n is greater than 8."

Along with the page on "manifolds"  really helped to make this whole thing a lot clearer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifold



Nov 16 2007 7:25PM
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2+2=5
Posts: 3676 - Karma: 18
i dont realy get that E8 shape thingy, is he just getting the credit for linking the universe and shape?
Nov 16 2007 7:44PM
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ax_murderer
Posts: 3322 - Karma: 30
yah man hes just getting the credit for linking all the forces in the universe. no biggy
Nov 16 2007 7:55PM
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user098123
Posts: 6072 - Karma: 18
E8 is a shape that exists in nature, and was discovered along time ago, in 1887 I believe they said. However, at that time, and up until just recently, they have not been able to figure out the shape mathematically. Finally, after many years of work they have been able to mathematically understand the E8 structure. At least that is my understanding of it.

Take for example, a straight line across your piece of paper. That line can be mathematically represented by some 2-dimensional equation along the lines of y=x. That is a mathematical representation of the figure you are viewing.

Now compare that to E8. E8 is a a similar idea, however, instead of having the 2-dimensional line on your paper, it is a 248-dimensional figure existing in free space. How do you mathematically represent that figure? It's obviously much much more difficult. That is what they just found out.

With the E8 idea in mind, a physicist began formulating laws of the universe and calculating all the different forces and such that interact among one another. With the new mathematical representation of the E8 structure, he found that his versions of the laws of physics fit into the E8 formula. I think that is how it works, however I am kind of fuzzy on that aspect. What is great about his versions of the laws of physics is that they cover only 3 dimensions, and a 4th, time, and they all fit perfectly within this E8 structure. Other theories that physicists have believed to be true (i.e. string theory) are much more complicated, ranging over 16 dimensions I believe, and they don't know how to produce any experiments to test these theories. For this new theory though, being only over 3 dimensions and time it is much easier, seeing as how everything we do is based in 3 dimensions and time.

That is my understanding of it at least. Correct me if I'm wrong in any of it.
Nov 16 2007 7:57PM
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A_T_K
Posts: 1403 - Karma: 12
what is this point are you trying to make? i dont know about you but without superb peripheral vision and sparknotes i wouldnt have graduated high school,
Nov 16 2007 8:03PM
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spere
Posts: 6105 - Karma: 248
thats so sick, props to this guy for doing what he wants
Nov 16 2007 8:05PM
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SirFryanator
Posts: 11149 - Karma: 1,415
that's ridiculous. I really hope they find out the theory of everything, it would really advance the scientific community. I don't think this is it...but props to the dude anyways! It's a great attempt. If it is, then wow. Just wow.
Nov 16 2007 11:14PM
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Microcosm
Posts: 4765 - Karma: 153
interesting. so he's agreeing with the stereotype? I mean truue, there is no secret that most any true surfer will skip school, job, anniversaries, birthdays etc. to get out there. I quit my first summer job to go surfing! but in so many ways it's a connection with the environment and the earth as well as yourself and it broadens the mind. it's an experience impossible to understand without having done it. we may appear to be some stupid "dude" but we're just stoked on life.
Nov 17 2007 12:23AM
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CabDoctor
Posts: 602 - Karma: 9
Thats exactly it.  and the lines represent the interactions by means of gravitational force, electromagnetic force, and both weak and strong force. 
Nov 17 2007 3:08AM
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XtRemE11
Posts: 5680 - Karma: 268
random numbers and letters and big words confuse me, can someone explain this to me
Nov 17 2007 4:44AM
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skibio5
Posts: 1044 - Karma: 31
Fo Sho dude, you pretty much got all of it. + Karma

as far as if it a big deal for physics, i'd say yes. because this theory is the one of the only ones which has been thought of as plausible since physicists started trying to figure this shit out. (honestly i don't really pay attention to physics, but this is the only theory i've heard of since the string theory, the fact that it's getting covered on a legit news site says something, as does the fact that it could at least be part of the truth because it does fit together with a proven math formula) people who come up with original theories rarely understand the whole truth, rather they inspire more people to do further research on the subject and learn to understand more aboutf it.

whats exciting about this theory, is that the surfer is predicting the existence of new particles which hadn't previously been thought of. and from what the article said there is a new particle accelerator that is going into operation in the near future. and there is a possibility that it can either verify the existence of the surfer dude's theoretical particles, or string theory particles. we're just going to have to wait and see where other scientists with access to better labs than a poor surfer dude will take it.
Nov 17 2007 7:22AM
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SHastatahoe
Posts: 3414 - Karma: 19
Yeah, no doubt, I think he lives in Pasadina now. 
Nov 17 2007 6:13PM
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mothaeast
Posts: 2923 - Karma: 13
thats inspiring
Nov 17 2007 9:57PM
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Microcosm
Posts: 4765 - Karma: 153
sweet, livin the dream.
Nov 18 2007 12:03AM
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slimbruddah
Posts: 2611 - Karma: 25
If he was right in his theory, would that not mean that we would be able to predict the entry and exit of black holes? Would they be able to predict a universal map?
Nov 18 2007 12:22AM
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slimbruddah
Posts: 2611 - Karma: 25
i mean predict the location
Nov 18 2007 12:23AM
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emopoppins
Posts: 3996 - Karma: 269

"Some incredibly beautiful stuff falls out of Lisi's theory," adds David Ritz Finkelstein at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. "This must be more than coincidence and he really is touching on something profound."

HAHAHAHAHA

Nov 18 2007 1:01AM
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jimmychung
Posts: 6857 - Karma: 25
i really hope that works, that would be astounding. i've been wondering to myself when the next huge name in physics would come out.
Nov 18 2007 1:45AM
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Elijah.
Posts: 9322 - Karma: 76
I don't understand what's worth "HAHAHAHAHA"ing about.
Nov 18 2007 1:46AM
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-Kieran-
Posts: 1009 - Karma: 12
priceless
Nov 18 2007 2:46AM
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prophet
Posts: 4734 - Karma: 1,007
E8... Mandala.... guess I might as well move to tibet, Buddhists were right all along
Nov 18 2007 4:17AM
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whattheshit
Posts: 6562 - Karma: 107
is it any surprise considering the scientists that discovered the double helix structure of DNA were on LSD?
Nov 18 2007 5:50AM
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skibio5
Posts: 1044 - Karma: 31
meh. thats presuming that this surfer dude was on drugs when he came up with this theory. its possible, but honestly i doubt it.
this dude has a doctorate in theoretical physics. i'm pretty confident he knows his shit.
Nov 18 2007 6:33AM
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2+2=5
Posts: 3676 - Karma: 18
"This must be more than coincidence and
he really is touching on something profound."


thats what's so hahaha about it
Nov 18 2007 9:18AM
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Microcosm
Posts: 4765 - Karma: 153
I thought it was about "Finkelstein"
Nov 18 2007 9:56AM
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slimbruddah
Posts: 2611 - Karma: 25
Yeah, it's the name. Finkelstein man.
Nov 18 2007 12:52PM
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Microcosm
Posts: 4765 - Karma: 153
hahaha, true that. it's funny.
Nov 18 2007 3:36PM
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Owen.
Posts: 1134 - Karma: 13
I dont get it
Nov 18 2007 3:44PM
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user098123
Posts: 6072 - Karma: 18
I think that was the name of one of the guys in Beerfest.
Nov 18 2007 4:33PM
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BigJew
Posts: 6974 - Karma: 79
So apparently, if you actually can decipher what his paper says, you can see that it's a complete load of bullshit.

http://www.sciencenews.net.au/surfers-theory-of-everything-may-be-dismissed-as-invalid/
Nov 19 2007 12:14AM
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lt.milo
Posts: 1582 - Karma: 138
^its not bs, but its not a good paper either.  While he aims to disprove String Theory, he still needs all the extra dimensions that String Theory offers. 
Most physicists are not taking this seriously until some better proofs come.  He is really just getting this coverage because he is a surfer.
Nov 19 2007 6:58AM
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skibio5
Posts: 1044 - Karma: 31
^^ that site that says his paper is invalid is basing their article off an online blogger...

after reading some of what the blogger has to say it sounds like surfer's paper is overly simplified, and even basically leaves physics out of it. either way i think the surfers got some work  to do before he convinces the scientific community.
Nov 19 2007 2:00PM
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