God and Nature Summer 2019
Is There a “Theory of Everything,” and can Science Ever Find It?
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By Paul Arveson
Americans are familiar with the notion of science as the "endless frontier" outlined by Vannevar Bush in his 1945 strategic report (1) to the President that eventually led to the launching of the National Science Foundation.
We have come a long way down the science superhighway since that visionary document. One prime example is the status of elementary particle physics. Over time, the focus in the study of matter has moved from chemicals to molecules to atoms to nuclei and finally to elementary particles. As experiments progressed to more fundamental particles, it was necessary to probe matter with increasing energy.
When I was in college in the 1960s, accelerator physicists began producing a plethora of new particles—scores of them—measured as resonance peaks in the energy of particle beams. These particles had a wide range of masses, and there was no known way to organize all of them. Larger accelerators were constructed, such as Fermilab's Tevatron (which ASA members can tour during the 2019 Annual Meeting), in hopes of seeking answers at higher energies. One might say that experimental physics had gone far ahead of theoretical physics in that period.
Americans are familiar with the notion of science as the "endless frontier" outlined by Vannevar Bush in his 1945 strategic report (1) to the President that eventually led to the launching of the National Science Foundation.
We have come a long way down the science superhighway since that visionary document. One prime example is the status of elementary particle physics. Over time, the focus in the study of matter has moved from chemicals to molecules to atoms to nuclei and finally to elementary particles. As experiments progressed to more fundamental particles, it was necessary to probe matter with increasing energy.
When I was in college in the 1960s, accelerator physicists began producing a plethora of new particles—scores of them—measured as resonance peaks in the energy of particle beams. These particles had a wide range of masses, and there was no known way to organize all of them. Larger accelerators were constructed, such as Fermilab's Tevatron (which ASA members can tour during the 2019 Annual Meeting), in hopes of seeking answers at higher energies. One might say that experimental physics had gone far ahead of theoretical physics in that period.
"...research is not about the final answer, it’s about the process of discovery." |
Then theoretical physicists like Murray Gell-Mann, Stephen Weinberg, and Leon Lederman got busy and solved a number of problems to develop a unified theory that came to be known as the Standard Model of Particle Physics. Theories guided experimentalists into what to look for, and what they found in turn helped the theoreticians. The last particle to be found in this reconciliation of theory with experiment was the Higgs boson, which was predicted by Peter Higgs in the 1960s and finally discovered in 2012 using the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva.
The LHC is a series of particle accelerators of increasing energy. The largest one uses superconducting magnets that must be cooled to 1.5 degrees above absolute zero. Its construction required resources from 58 countries and involved some 2000 physicists to design and assemble in a 17-mile underground beam tunnel. With its associated detectors, it’s the largest and most complex machine ever built. It has also been called humankind's greatest international peaceful cooperative effort.
Following CERN's success in completing the experimental evidence for the Standard Model, the visionary scientists at CERN are planning to raise the luminosity of the accelerator to improve the statistical quality of its measurements. They are also devising further experiments to resolve remaining hard questions in physics, such as the nature of dark matter, dark energy, and quantum gravity.
Theoretical physicists are fond of talking about a "theory of everything" that would unite all the forces of nature (including gravity, which is not explained by the Standard Model) into one unified mathematical structure. Steven Weinberg in 1992 published an important book called Dreams of a Final Theory (2). Recently I watched a fascinating lecture (3) by the current leading theoretical physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed (who is now at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, where Einstein once resided). He praised Weinberg's book as the one he would recommend most highly for a general audience. Although Arkani-Hamed described himself as an atheist, he nevertheless recognized a kind of morality that must prevail among scientists in order to do science.
The pursuit of elementary particle physics is a reductionist program in which scientists seek the most basic and universal constituents of all matter in the universe. We can be gratified for the tremendous progress that this program has achieved in our lifetimes. However, is there really an "everything"? And is there any end to the "endless horizon"?
Marcelo Gleiser, a Brazilian theoretical physicist at Dartmouth College and author of a number of popular books about science and the universe, was awarded this year’s Templeton Prize. Gleiser’s research has covered a wide breadth of topics, ranging from the properties of the early universe to the behavior of fundamental particles and the origins of life.
Gleiser was recently interviewed by Scientific American writer Lee Billings (4). He argued that atheism is not science but merely "a categorical statement that expresses belief in nonbelief… It's a declaration." Regarding the “theory of everything”, Gleiser had this to say:…"I get upset by misstatements, like when you have scientists—Stephen Hawking and Lawrence Krauss among them—claiming we have solved the problem of the origin of the universe, or that string theory is correct and that the final “theory of everything” is at hand. Such statements are bogus" (4).
He goes on to clarify that he does not discourage the search for unified explanations of nature—we do need such theories:
A lot of physics is based on this drive to simplify and bring things together… it is the blank statement that there could ever be a theory of everything that I think is fundamentally wrong from a philosophical perspective. This whole notion of finality and final ideas is, to me, just an attempt to turn science into a religious system, which is something I disagree with profoundly… research is not about the final answer, it’s about the process of discovery. It’s what you find along the way that matters, and it is curiosity that moves the human spirit forward. (4)
Although Gleiser quotes Hawking as one who desired a "final theory” in his book A Brief History of Time, it seems that he subsequently changed his mind. In a brief talk from 2002 (5) he summarized much of the recent history of theoretical physics, and then he applied Gödel’s famous incompleteness theorem to argue that our search for understanding may never come to an end. In other words, Hawking ultimately concluded—in precise agreement with Gleiser—that there is no such thing as a final theory.
Some people will be very disappointed if there is not an ultimate theory that can be formulated as a finite number of principles. I used to belong to that camp, but I have changed my mind. I'm now glad that our search for understanding will never come to an end, and that we will always have the challenge of new discovery. Without it, we would stagnate. Gödel’s theorem ensured there would always be a job for mathematicians. I think M theory will do the same for physicists.
So maybe there is a physicists’ heaven, where great minds continue to pursue the physics of God’s ever-expanding frontier.
References
1. Bush, V. The Final Frontier. National Science Foundation 1945.
2. Weinberg, S. Dreams of a Final Theory: The Scientist’s Search for the Ultimate Laws of Nature. Vintage Books, 1994.
3. Nima Arkani-Hamed: The Morality of Fundamental Physics. Cornell University 2016.
4. Billings, L. "Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method, Prizewinning Physicist Says.” Scientific American, Mar. 20, 2019.
5. Hawking, S. “Gödel and the End of the Universe.” 2002.
Paul Arveson is a physicist doing projects in acoustics and oceanography. He also worked as a web developer and technology architect. He co-founded a strategic management firm before he retired. He is active in various technical organizations, and is a Fellow in the ASA and the Washington Academy of Sciences. He led the local section of the ASA in the Washington DC area for over 20 years. Paul is married to Dr. Kathy Arveson, a Professor of pastoral counseling, and they have two daughters. They live in Rockville, Maryland.
The LHC is a series of particle accelerators of increasing energy. The largest one uses superconducting magnets that must be cooled to 1.5 degrees above absolute zero. Its construction required resources from 58 countries and involved some 2000 physicists to design and assemble in a 17-mile underground beam tunnel. With its associated detectors, it’s the largest and most complex machine ever built. It has also been called humankind's greatest international peaceful cooperative effort.
Following CERN's success in completing the experimental evidence for the Standard Model, the visionary scientists at CERN are planning to raise the luminosity of the accelerator to improve the statistical quality of its measurements. They are also devising further experiments to resolve remaining hard questions in physics, such as the nature of dark matter, dark energy, and quantum gravity.
Theoretical physicists are fond of talking about a "theory of everything" that would unite all the forces of nature (including gravity, which is not explained by the Standard Model) into one unified mathematical structure. Steven Weinberg in 1992 published an important book called Dreams of a Final Theory (2). Recently I watched a fascinating lecture (3) by the current leading theoretical physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed (who is now at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, where Einstein once resided). He praised Weinberg's book as the one he would recommend most highly for a general audience. Although Arkani-Hamed described himself as an atheist, he nevertheless recognized a kind of morality that must prevail among scientists in order to do science.
The pursuit of elementary particle physics is a reductionist program in which scientists seek the most basic and universal constituents of all matter in the universe. We can be gratified for the tremendous progress that this program has achieved in our lifetimes. However, is there really an "everything"? And is there any end to the "endless horizon"?
Marcelo Gleiser, a Brazilian theoretical physicist at Dartmouth College and author of a number of popular books about science and the universe, was awarded this year’s Templeton Prize. Gleiser’s research has covered a wide breadth of topics, ranging from the properties of the early universe to the behavior of fundamental particles and the origins of life.
Gleiser was recently interviewed by Scientific American writer Lee Billings (4). He argued that atheism is not science but merely "a categorical statement that expresses belief in nonbelief… It's a declaration." Regarding the “theory of everything”, Gleiser had this to say:…"I get upset by misstatements, like when you have scientists—Stephen Hawking and Lawrence Krauss among them—claiming we have solved the problem of the origin of the universe, or that string theory is correct and that the final “theory of everything” is at hand. Such statements are bogus" (4).
He goes on to clarify that he does not discourage the search for unified explanations of nature—we do need such theories:
A lot of physics is based on this drive to simplify and bring things together… it is the blank statement that there could ever be a theory of everything that I think is fundamentally wrong from a philosophical perspective. This whole notion of finality and final ideas is, to me, just an attempt to turn science into a religious system, which is something I disagree with profoundly… research is not about the final answer, it’s about the process of discovery. It’s what you find along the way that matters, and it is curiosity that moves the human spirit forward. (4)
Although Gleiser quotes Hawking as one who desired a "final theory” in his book A Brief History of Time, it seems that he subsequently changed his mind. In a brief talk from 2002 (5) he summarized much of the recent history of theoretical physics, and then he applied Gödel’s famous incompleteness theorem to argue that our search for understanding may never come to an end. In other words, Hawking ultimately concluded—in precise agreement with Gleiser—that there is no such thing as a final theory.
Some people will be very disappointed if there is not an ultimate theory that can be formulated as a finite number of principles. I used to belong to that camp, but I have changed my mind. I'm now glad that our search for understanding will never come to an end, and that we will always have the challenge of new discovery. Without it, we would stagnate. Gödel’s theorem ensured there would always be a job for mathematicians. I think M theory will do the same for physicists.
So maybe there is a physicists’ heaven, where great minds continue to pursue the physics of God’s ever-expanding frontier.
References
1. Bush, V. The Final Frontier. National Science Foundation 1945.
2. Weinberg, S. Dreams of a Final Theory: The Scientist’s Search for the Ultimate Laws of Nature. Vintage Books, 1994.
3. Nima Arkani-Hamed: The Morality of Fundamental Physics. Cornell University 2016.
4. Billings, L. "Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method, Prizewinning Physicist Says.” Scientific American, Mar. 20, 2019.
5. Hawking, S. “Gödel and the End of the Universe.” 2002.
Paul Arveson is a physicist doing projects in acoustics and oceanography. He also worked as a web developer and technology architect. He co-founded a strategic management firm before he retired. He is active in various technical organizations, and is a Fellow in the ASA and the Washington Academy of Sciences. He led the local section of the ASA in the Washington DC area for over 20 years. Paul is married to Dr. Kathy Arveson, a Professor of pastoral counseling, and they have two daughters. They live in Rockville, Maryland.