Surfer dude stuns physicists with theory of everything

I doubt this will prove to be particularly fruitful. However, I think this does show the importance of outside-the-box and independant research in physics. Julian Barbour works as a Russian translator, but has come up with very interesting ways to formulate physics in a timeless world. Though such ideas may not be that monumental on their own, I think they do open up the path towards new ideas and new directions of research. The jump to a new theory will probably come much later, but this kind of thing could possibly be the starting point.

Everybody talk about mauitian while he's not looking!

This is really exciting! I remember reading conversations between him, you and spoonless a while back, and seeing him post quite often on this forum, and wishing I had enough of a background to understand what you were all talking about.

...Are you gonna be in the news next, cocacoladdict?

You mean cocacolaaddict; the one that merges the "a" in "cola" and the 'a' in "addict" is someone else.

Anyway, not planning to be in the news anytime soon, my work is less crazyambitious for now....

Backreaction looks like the best place to get a solid summary, for those of us who find the Daily Telegraph article too simple to be enlightening and the paper itself too complicated. (Whenever anyone mentions E8, alas, my brain shuts off automatically. All I can ever remember about it is that it's a very large mathematical structure that theorists like to put the Standard Model inside, for some reason.)

Err, I think this might be getting over-hyped a bit. The theory looks pretty good, but it's still developing and hasn't even made successful predictions yet. But string theorists shouldn't get to have all the fun. ;)

Now back to my scary inbox...

I have a similar theory wherein I map all of the standard model particles onto the naughty bits in porno mags.

Where is my new scientist article? HUH? WELL?

I believe the graviton has a mass of 36DD.

Sounds like you want to put the "VD" in "vDVZ discontinuity."

Have you been reading my notebook?

Whether or not the theory is any good, the article is total crap. What is this "surfer dude" stereotype bullshit? Like omg, some idiot surfer can do physics?! WTF?! Dude has a Ph.D. from UCSD and a nearly perfect GPA all throughout his education. He's a fucking Doctor of Philosophy in Physics, not a "surfer dude," and they really ought to refer to him as Dr. Lisi. I'm kind of pissed about the way they presented this.

I don't think "Man with Ph.D. in Physics Makes Up New Theory of Physics" would have had quite the same ring to it.

The thing is... I am a surfer dude.

Well, yes, I know, and that's fantastic. I just wish they didn't have to sound so condescending to surfer dudes... like they're all supposed to be idiots and how the hell is it possible that some surfer can also be a physicist.

On the other hand, if you're not offended, I guess it doesn't matter.

I think it's more just playing to the romantic image of that lone person living off removed from the establishment, doing their own thing, coming up with ideas, and actually getting somewhere (if that's indeed what's happened). Even better if they surf and ski and live in Hawaii.

Heck, it sounds like a great life. I sure wouldn't complain if I got to do physics on a beach.

I understand why you're annoyed, but I think that's what journalists will always do.

On a totally unrelated topic, there's a musician called YY in the UK who was part of a famous punk band, called XXX. (I forget the titles, but does it matter?) He still tours, but he's done some academic studies as well. So a university asked him to come in and do a course on music for a semester/term.

The media picked this up, and he got loads of interviews from radio and tv on the same day. They wer eall the same. They all portrated it as, "Wow, the university is asking this cool ex-guitarist to do a course", and made it out that he was simply being asked because he was famous, and cool, and he'd be coming into the class and playing songs only.

I heard an interview earlier in the day on radio, and they said, "AND THE NEWS IS YY SAID THAT THE BAND XXX MIGHT REFORM". When you heard the interview the journalist asked, "Are you going to reform", and he had said, "Well we'reall doig other things at the moment, but who knows what will happen in the future anything's possible."

In the afternoon on TV I heard him being interviewed again, and they said at the end, "One last thing, are you going to reform?" He said, "We reformed this morning." The news reader didn't understand, there was a pause and he said, "How do you mean?" The musician said, "I've just been trying different replies to that question to amuse myself." ... another pause "So you're not going to reform?" ... "No".

So yes, as has already being said, "Person studies hard for years and does a PhD and comes up with a theory that shows promise in the quest to unite the different forces" isn't as good as "WOW OMG SUM SURFER DOODZ HEZ GOT A FAB THEORY HE ROCX HE'S PWNED THOSE SCIENTISTS"