Luminous Numinous

This is old news at this point and you’ve probably heard. But soon, we may have some idea of whether it’s all true.

A couple of years ago, Antony Garrett  Lisi, (who goes by his middle name, Garrett), a theoretical physicist and Burning Man regular, discovered something strange.

Lisi, who graduated with a 3.9 cum (and a 4.0 in Math and Physics) from UCLA (Go Bruins!), was trying to nudge the science world closer to a “Grand Unified Field Theory,” a theory that would adequately explain all the known forces and particles in the Universe.

As I’m sure you know, when Classical Newtonian physics was overthrown in the Twentieth Century, two new theories replaced the old one. One theory, the theory of quantum mechanics, describes the strange behavior of infinitesimally small objects. We are told that such objects sometimes behave as propagating waves (like sound waves or water waves) and sometimes they behave as solid, stable particles (like billiard balls). Weirder still, we’re told that these objects behave differently when we are watching them. Strangest of all, these objects seem to be able to occupy two spatial positions at the same time, and they are known to magically disappear from one place and then re-appear, across vast distances and impenetrable barriers, at entirely new locales WITHOUT TRAVELING THROUGH THE INTERVENING SPACE. And these objects, once they have shared a common state,  can forever communicate with each other, no matter how far you remove them, and they can do so instantly–not at light speed, mind you, but INSTANTLY, as though the communication between them took absolutely no time whatsoever.

The other theory, the theory of relativity, applies to astronomically large objects (and huge forces). This theory tells us that space and time are really aspects of the same thing. Because space and time are equivalent and interchangeable, it turns out that if you add up any object’s momentum through the space AND time, that all objects in the cosmos are always traveling at the same speed (”C” the speed of light). For you and me sitting on our butts in front of computers in stationary houses or in slow (by cosmic standards) trains or planes, we are expending most of our momentum in the time dimension, literally traveling toward the future at 99% the speed of light. Time flies indeed. Any object traveling faster than light speed, (a “tachyon”) would have to travel BACKWARD through time at a rate proportional to its rate through space in excess of “C,” so that its total velocity through space and time remains fixed at the speed of light. For objects that travel right at light speed, time freezes, moving neither forward nor backward.

That space and time are the same is evident if you think about it. When asked “how far away” the supermarket is, for instance, you might answer that it’s “ten minutes”  away, or, you might say it’s “seven miles away.” We use space and time interchangeably in such instances.  And if you and I want to MEET, we need four coordinates. We could meet at the Northeast corner of 7th Avenue and 119th Street on the 22nd floor, but if you show up at 11:00 am on Wednesday and I show up at 4:00 pm on Thursday, we won’t be at the same “place-time.” It took an Einstein to figure out that space and time exist as a unified phenomenon, but it seems obvious in retrospect.

We’re also told that gravity  (the force exerted by material objects) is equal to acceleration. That means that if you are in an elevator with no windows and you are standing on the floor, you never really know for sure whether the elevator floor is pushing up against your feet because the elevator is at rest on a planet or whether the elevator is in fact traveling upward at a great speed through empty space. That acceleration is equal to gravity is obvious in such examples as the movie Apollo 13 simulating zero gravity (a lack of the floor pushing up at you) by filming in an airplane as it falls. It works the other way, too, of course, and you can simulate increased gravity by accelerating quickly in a roller coaster or a jet airplane or a “Gravitron” centrifuge at the County Fair. We measure accelerative force in “Gs,” one “G” being equivalent to the force of gravity on planet Earth.

Weirder still, we’re told that space can bend, stretch, and shrink. Time too, is elastic and flexible and people traveling at different velocities or standing in different gravitational fields experience the flow of time at dramatically different rates.

Further, we’re told that no matter how fast you travel toward or away from a light source, that you will measure the speed of light relative to yourself as constant and unchanging.

If you and I are both in cars on the freeway, traveling at 65 mph, and we are traveling parallel to each other, we will experience each other’s relative velocity as zero. And if we were traveling away from each other (or toward each other) in a straight line, we would measure the other’s speed, relative to ourselves, as 130 mph. This is called “Galilean relativity.” But light is bizarre. It doesn’t care what direction you are traveling in or what your speed is, it always runs toward you or away from you at the exact same speed.

Relativity even tells us that we could measure the length of an object or the duration of an event and come up with different measurements…and both of us, depending on our “inertial” frame of reference, could be right. Given two events in time, we could even disagree about which event happened FIRST, and we could, again, both be right, turning causality on its head. (I need to point out that there is ALWAYS a right answer–and only one–concerning measurements for each inertial frame. Relativity is actually quite absolutist in this regard. So you can ditch any nihilistic notion that there is no such thing as truth. You still have a right to your opinion, but that doesn’t mean you’re not wrong!)

Lastly, and this is the most famous piece of the relativity puzzle, like gravity and acceleration, and like space and time, matter and energy turn out to be flip-sides of the same coin; they are interchangeable. Not only did Einstein tell us that you can turn matter into energy and vice versa, he actually calculated the precise exchange rate with his legendary equation: e=mc2

As weird as all this is, particles in two places at the same time, bent space, dilating time, matter turning into pure energy, entangled particles that not only seem aware of each other’s properties but seem to know whether or not  we are watching them, the weirdest part is that quantum mechanics and relativity don’t totally jibe. We have one theory for the quantum world of particle physics and another for gravitation.

Each theory has been proved true by innumerable experiments and measurements. Einstein carefully predicted the extent to which starlight would be bent (or, more aptly, travel through bent space) as it traveled past the Sun. Pictures were taken of stars on either side of the sun during a solar eclipse on an expedition led by Sir Arthur Eddington (a genius in his own right) and their starlight was displaced (the stars appeared to have moved) just as Einstein had predicted and relativity, therefore,  was proved true, instantly making Einstein the most famous person in the world. Long before this, tests had confirmed that clocks at sea level (or in fast moving jets) experience a slower rate of time than clocks at higher elevations (or at rest).

And if quantum theory were incorrect, we’d have no Wi-Fi networks, no base stations for mobile phones, and no MRI machines.

And yet, theories which try to unify ALL of the fields and forces (and particles) that we observe remain ungainly, gawky, awkward.

Superstring theory, which posits that the varied particles we observe are the result of one dimensional loops (if you can’t envision a one-dimensional loop, don’t fret; neither can anyone else) vibrating at different pitches or frequencies. So far, superstring theory is the most elegant Grand Unified Theory, but it has all kinds of problems (as do most theories that attempt to provide quantum descriptions of gravity). For one, some people debate whether string theory is really all that scientific in that it makes few  predictions that are testable (falsifiable)..at least at present. Secondly, string theory is inexact and requires many tweaks and modifications in order for it to fit the data.

But back to my boy, the Bruin, the BURNER.

Lisi was working on a version of “the Standard Model,” the most accurate model to date regarding particle physics, when he got a wicked case of déjà vu. Some of the equations seemed eerily familiar to him. He had seen them before: in a graduate level  ”elective” class he had taken in a field called topology, which studies the mathematics and geometry of hyper-dimensional objects. Some of the equations that Lisi was using in his particle physics research were the exact same equations used to describe a particular polytope–the most symmetrical, and some would say most beautiful, object in mathematics, the so-called E-8 polytope.

Lisi noticed that he could easily plot all  known particles (as well a couple of the particles predicted by  the Standard Model of particle physics) along the 248 symmetries of the E-8.

“I think our universe is this beautiful shape,” says Lisi.

Assuming our 4-dimensional Universe is stretched over the surface of an E-8 polytope like the skin on a drum, it can only twist, wrinkle, bend and fold in a finite number of ways–248 to be exact. These 248 possible topological features would, in turn, give rise to what we would observe as 248 possible forces and “particles,” (I remind you that these particles have little in common with classical objects like billiard balls). These, in turn, would explain ALL KNOWN INTERACTIONS IN THE COSMOS. That’s why we call such theories, theories of “everything.” Lisi’s E-8 theory won’t explain why the French love Jerry Lewis, but it would explain why we have the fundamental physical forces that we do.

It seems that our boy, Dr. Lisi is not only an expert at math, physics, surfing, and skiing; he’s pretty damned adept at puns as well. He named his theory, “An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything.” There are two puns in the title, the words “simple” and “exceptional.” The E-8 is the last and largest in a group of non-abelian (simple) Lie groups. The E-8 is one of only five Lie groups (exceptions) that do not regress infinitely into a series of subgroups necessitating higher and higher numbers of dimensions.

If my mathematics are correct, Lisi’s pun is a QUADRUPLE entendre. It’s not enough that he’s the next Einstein. He’s trying to be the next Oscar Wilde to boot. Bastard.

Lisi’s theory gives us a prediction, something testable: we ought to, in the future, find twenty more particles until we arrive at an even 248. Lisi is currently working on the calculations of the masses of the remaining 20 particles. If new particles are found that fit neatly into the E-8 model, you can bet your ass that Lisi will win the Nobel prize and he will be the 21st Century’s answer to Einstein.

So far, the predictions of Lisi’s model match what we find in the real world. Lisi asks, “How cool is that?”

When the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s most powerful atom smasher, goes back on line in February, we may well get a chance to crown Lisi the new King of Physics. The LHC accelerates particles and then forces them to collide. When they hit each other head-on, they break into smaller fragments. That’s how we find newer, smaller, and more fundamental particles.

Not only am I rooting for Lisi because we have the same alma mater; I’m also pulling for him because we share the same HOME–Black Rock City.

Here’s what Lisi has to say about the Festival of the Burning Man:

“Burning Man is the most amazingly great social gathering this side of the Andromeda galaxy. It’s a huge artistic pseudo-hippy techno love fest out in the desert where people make and are great art and then go around torching everything. You just gotta go to believe it. No, you still won’t believe it. It is the best of what a community of humans can be. Neither words nor pictures can suitably describe the Burning Man festival.”

After just three days on the playa, Lisi said…

“To transcribe my memories of the past few days would take the other 362 days of the year… The most amazingly great social gathering I’ve ever experienced.”

Sure sounds like the smartest man alive to me.

I ask you: What would it mean if the entire cosmos had the most beautiful artistic shape mathematically possible? And what would it mean if the entire Universe were a “mandala”–a sacred shape fashioned to draw one’s consciousness upward toward Spirit?

Tantric Buddhists and Hindus have always held that mandalas were symbols of completeness, emblems for all that IS.

They hold mandalas to be microcosms of the Universe as a whole.

It may just turn out that they are right.