The theory of everything...maybe

I read this in the International Herald Tribune this morning:

"A concatenation of puzzling results from an alphabet soup of satellites and experiments has led a growing number of astronomers and physicists to suspect that they are getting signals from a shadow universe of dark matter that makes up a quarter of creation but has eluded direct detection until now.

Maybe."

Wow...

I have been wondering lately what makes scientists of every generation think that they will find the meaning of "it all"? When history shows that as we learn more we also learn that we were wrong before. From Galileo to Einstein we have found theories and predictions that have been debunked over time as we have new technologies to find smaller and more distant things in ourselves or our universe.

As I have blogged previously of the CERN Hadron Collider and its use to find the tiniest matter particles or dark matter, did this same concept of science take place 300 odd years ago as well, albiet in a more rudimentary means of technological practice to find the same type of results? Are we not always on that quest to find the ultimate meaning of it all?

I feel that the ultimate truth is evasive and perhaps non existent. But trying to wrap one's mind around that option is quite difficult.

IHT: "On Thursday, a team of astrophysicists working on one of the experiments reported in the journal Nature that a cosmic ray detector onboard a balloon flying around the South Pole had recorded an excess number of high-energy electrons and their antimatter opposites, positrons, sailing through local space.

The particles, they conceded, could have been created by a previously undiscovered pulsar, the magnetized spinning remnant of a supernova explosion, blasting nearby space with electric and magnetic fields. But, they say, a better and more enticing explanation for the excess is that the particles are being spit out of the fireballs created by dark matter particles colliding and annihilating one another in space."

Quite. As they said, "it is a more enticing explanation..." Are we are always looking for the romance in science. That incredible find that will drastically change our lives as we know it for another 100 years. Or are these types of findings coming at us more frequently now with the advances in technology. Won't the discoveries continually be there despite technological advances. I mean, the universe will continue to morph and change and amaze as technology does to continually amaze the scientists.

I cannot believe that we are alone in this universe. With that said, there are other specie or entities well more advance and others that are less advanced throughout the universe. If the more advanced species out there are astounded with what they find why is it that our scientists feel that they are close to finding the answers. Galileo thought the same thing...

IHT: "The new theory called supersymmetry, which unifies three of the four known forces of nature mathematically posits the existence of a realm of as-yet-undiscovered particles. They would be so-called wimps — weakly interacting massive particles — which feel gravity and little else, and could drift through the Earth like wind through a screen door. Such particles left over from the Big Bang could form a shadow universe clumping together into dark clouds that then attract ordinary matter."

This theory goes beyond Einstein and gravity. We are beginning to augment Einstein's theories of relativity. Will there come a day to which his ideas become antiquated. Will there come a day when we find that, as we found we no longer are the center of the universe, we also know nothing of what we thought we knew? Can what we know be turned upside down once the proof of multidimensions is discovered?
That would throw everything into a loop!

IHT: "The discovery of a supersymmetric particle would also be a boost for string theory, the controversial "theory of everything," and would explicate the nature of a quarter of the universe. But until now, the dark matter particles have mostly eluded direct detection in the laboratory, the exception being a controversial underground experiment called Dama/Libra, for Dark Matter/Large Sodium Iodide Bulk for Rare Processes, under the Italian Alps, where scientists claimed in April to have seen a seasonal effect of a "dark matter wind" as the Earth goes around its orbit."

I enjoy learning and reading string theory, but there will come a day that we find this is not the theory of everything. Once the multidimensions come into the frey we will need to start all over again with different rules for each dimension!?

IHT: "The Nature paper includes data from the first two balloon flights. It shows a bump, over theoretical calculations of cosmic ray intensities, at energies of 500 billion to 800 billion electron volts, a measure of both energy and mass in physics. One way to explain that energy bump would be by the disintegration or annihilation of a very massive dark particle. A proton by comparison is about one billion electron volts."

I am not discounting any of this science. I enjoy reading anything from Brian Greene. It intrigues me to the core, however, the notion that we are close to finding the "theory of everything" is as arrogant as saying we are alone or the most intelligent beings in the universe.

IHT: "Such particles are called Kaluza-Klein particles, after Theodor Kaluza and Oscar Klein, theorists who suggested such an extra-dimensional framework in the 1920s to unify Einstein's general theory of relativity and electromagnetism."

Okay, in the 1920's we began to discuss extra dimension framework. With the advent of string theory that discussion became much of the background behind the work.

IHT: "Wefel's particle would have a mass of around 620 billion electron volts. 'That's the one that seems to fit the best,' he said in an interview. The emergence of a sharp edge in the data, he said, 'would be a smoking gun' for such a strange particle.

But Arkani-Hamed said that Kaluza-Klein particles would not annihilate one another at a fast enough rate to explain the strength of the ATIC signal, nor other anomalies like the microwave haze. He and his colleagues, including Weiner, Finkbeiner and Tracy Slatyer, also of Harvard, drawing on work by Matthew Strassler of Rutgers, have tried to connect all the dots with a new brand of dark matter, in which there are not only dark particles but also a 'dark force' between them.

That theory was called 'a delightful castle in the sky' by Kane, who said he was glad it kept Arkani-Hamed and his colleagues busy and diverted them from competing with him. Kane and his colleagues favor a 200 billion-electron-volt supersymmetric particle known as a wino as the dark matter culprit, in which case the Pamela bump would not extend to higher energies.

Ok. We are close to the theory of everything...now what?



This, the 204th entry in bloggoland! Thanks for reading and coming back. I always enjoy the comments, emails and the banter!!


(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs