UNIFICATION OF RELATIVITY AND QUANTUM PHYSICS

Grand Unification Theories (GUTs) or Theories of Everything (TOEs) are the Holy Grail of today’s physics. Finding the theory, concept, rule or law that combines the electromagnetic forces of quantum physics with the gravitational force of gravity in relativity is the focus of most all of the work in physics today. String Theory and some of its associated theories, such as Super-Symmetry takes up the lion’s share of current research. There are also the Quantum Gravity Theories, including Loop Quantum Gravity, another theory is Super-Determinism and there is also the multiverse along with a few more. Is chasing anyone of the GUTs of TOEs the right thing to be doing? I say NO!

Here is the thing, all of these GUTs and TOEs are mathematical models, none of which can be experimentally proven. String Theory, the most commonly known of the models, has been around for about 45 years. In other words, physicists have been working on String Theory for a really long time and they are no closer to proving their mathematical model today than they were 45 years ago. In fact I believe it is fair to say that there are more questions associated with String Theory today then there were 45 years ago.

String Theory is the one that gets all of the current publicity and it is the one that has all of the various dimensions. These dimensions are supposed to occur in the space below the smallest distance we know of. Let me give you a few more details about this; one form of String Theory has 10 dimensions, 9 space dimensions one of time, another one has 11 dimensions, 9 of space, one of time and one of energy, and another one has 26 dimensions. And, in all of these theories, these extra dimensions are “compactified” down into a space that has a distance so small we can never ever see it or work within it. This really does just beg the question can science really understand a distance this small? The name of this distance is the “Planck Length.”

Are we really supposed to accept something such as this that can never be proven, or disproven? Oh, and it gets better; String Theory actually has an infinite number of possible dimensions. That is, pick a number, any number and that number of dimensions can exist in String Theory. The current number of String Theory dimensions has been “discovered” because they do not blow up mathematically. In other words, out of an infinite number of possible dimensions, science will only look at a couple that work.

Let’s be honest here, does this really make any sense at all? And, how can we, the average person and even the science community, really be expected to buy into something when the “experts” cannot even agree on how many dimensions there should be out of an infinite number of possibilities? Are we all supposed to believe that as beautiful and wonderful nature truly is that is operates on something as complex as string theory? Me personally, I think that any theory that has an infinite number of wrong, or more precisely impossible, answers is not right. This can actually be taken one step further, given that there are an infinite number of possible dimensions how does science know that theory 500, 5000 or even more dimensions is not possible? If 10, 11 or 26 dimensions are acceptable who is to decide that this is where we stop? 

There is one thing I would like to mention regarding GUTs, TOEs and multiple dimensional theories, there has been some form of work on a GUT or TOE for almost 100 years. Theodor Kaluza’s multi-dimensional theory for trying to unify quantum and relativity came out in 1921. Here is the difference between Kaluza’s theory and the current string theory, Kaluza’s theory was 5 total dimension, 4 of space and one of time. And, his fourth dimensions was not smaller than the smallest thing we know, instead it was above and encompassed, our three dimensions. The physicist in power at the time had an argument against Kaluza’s original theory so he tried to work things out by making the 4^th dimension small and it did not work out. I will be writing about Kaluza’s theory in the future, but in the meantime I would offer this food for thought and a larger 4^th dimension, dark matter and dark energy.

I believe that there is another significant argument against GUTs and TOEs, and that is basic understanding. If unification of quantum and relativity were possible to accomplish, then the first step toward completing unification would be a complete understanding of relativity and quantum. And scientists are not even close to accomplishing this for either quantum or relativity. Currently quantum theory is probabilistic while relativity is deterministic. And, relativity is the physics of very big things and long distances while quantum is the physics of very small things and short distances. On the most basic of basic levels these two things do not match. And if they do not match, how can they possibly be unified?

Physicist and scientists do not understand the complete workings of black holes which fall under relativity. In quantum, there needs to be an understanding of the duality and uncertainty associated with atomic and subatomic particles. Again, these are the basics of the basics of relativity and quantum and if there is no complete understanding of these things how is it even possible to believe that unification can be accomplished. The current thought among today’s scientist is that by coming up with a unification theory then we will be able to have all of our questions about relativity and quantum answered which in turn will provide a complete understanding of these two branches of physics. Isn’t this backwards? Don’t we have to understand the basic components before we can understand the combined? Even more important, if physicist and scientists do not completely understand relativity or quantum how can they possibly know that a unification theory is right and provides the right answers?

If all of the previous information was not enough to show that unification is not possible, I have one more consideration, I have saved the best for last. There is absolutely nothing in any part of any physics that requires any GUTs, TOEs, or any kind of unification. Unification is completely man made. It can be argued that since any kind of unification, GUT or TOE is something that physicist want to do and is not required by nature there is no need for it, and that the lack of a natural requirement could mean that it is something that cannot be accomplished. In other words, rather than trying accomplish something that we can never be proven and is not even required by nature  maybe science should be working on something that is a little more beneficial to all of humanity.