View Single Post
  #28 (permalink)  
Old 24-May-2008, 06:49 AM
Tim Thompson's Avatar
Tim Thompson Tim Thompson is offline
Established Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Los Angeles
Posts: 2,359
Lightbulb Theory of Everything?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fadingstar View Post
I was watching a program on tv where a few scientists, including Prof. Hawkins, believed that a unified theory was not far away.
That's Hawking.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fadingstar View Post
But considering the differences in the structure of QM and GR, I was left wondering if this was actually attainable.
Not only do I think it is attainable, I think it is reasonable to argue that it has already been done. String theory is a quantum theory, but it wholly includes general relativity, which is not a quantum theory. That is one of the primary reasons that string theory is so popular amongst theoreticians as a candidate "theory of everything". Of course, the details of making general relativity quantized remain elusive. But if it were truly impossible, how could this be?
__________________
The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it. -- Bertrand Russell
Reply With Quote