World Science Festival 2008: Beyond Einstein, Part 2 of 8

Albert Einstein spent his last thirty years unsuccessfully searching for a 'unified theory' - a single master principle to describe everything in the universe, from tiny subatomic particles to immense clusters of galaxies. In the decades since, generations of researchers have continued working toward Einstein's dream.

Renowned physicists Leonard Susskind, Jana Levin, Jim Gates, and prominent historian Peter Galison discussed what's been achieved and tackled pivotal questions. Would a unified theory reveal why there is a universe at all? Would it tell us why mathematics is adept at unraveling nature's mysteries? Might it imply we are one universe of many, and what would that mean for our sense of how we fit into the cosmos? Moderated by Nobel Laureate Paul Nurse.

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Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• World Science Festival
• Leonard Susskind
• Jim Gates
• Peter Galison
• Paul Nurse
• Jana Levin
• Einstein
• Albert Einstein
• Physics
• Science
• Quantum mechanics
• string theory
• cosmology

[broulys1729]

among all these people sussikind is the only one i want to listen to.

[TheFaceOfJohnPants]

3:28 historian is not amused.

[sbergman27]

@FeelOfFriction - In Special and General Relativity it certainly is. Although it is not treated exactly the same as the 3 spatial dimensions.

[sbergman27]

@kyzercube You're missing the point. Thought experiments are useful for theorists. But the resulting theories, like relativity, would be meaningless without actual experiments to validate them. In the case of relativity and QM, these have been done, and we have some confidence that they are substantially correct. In general, the Greeks were too intellectually arrogant to follow through with real experiments. Which is why they were confident of so many things which turned out to be incorrect.

[kyzercube]

sbergman27 couldn't have said it any better. Science is progress. You go as far as you can with the sources you have, and that's it, but one thing will never change. New developments of modern science [ copernican based and beyond ] have NEVER proven a previous aspect of science false. It's like any other story where the next episode picks up where the last one left off. It's always an addition.

[kyzercube]

"seated in the lotus position with pure thought" eerrrmmm... yeah... correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that THE definition for Thought Experimentation? The very core of Einstein's work? The work that lead to all the big science of the 20th and 21st century i.e. - lasers, sub-atomic particles, e=mc2, space-time correlation, general relativity, LCD and Plasma screen TV's and other such nice things that you take for granted?

I'm not one for slang, but ...dude,seriously, time for you to recognize

[FeelOfFriction]

Time is not a dimension.

[sbergman27]

@roflcopter2225 Please see tinyurl dt cm slsh ybscfu6

[sbergman27]

@roflcopter2225: That's not how modern science progresses. We don't find that "everything we thought we knew was wrong". Any new theory must still explain everything the old one did. e.g. relativity reduces to Newtonian mechanics at low velocities. See if you can find a copy of the Isaac Asimov essay "The Relativity of Wrong". It's an excellent description. Working from pure logic rather than experiment, as they did, much of what the Greeks thought they knew has been shown to be wrong, however.

[Jimitoru]

@sbergman27 Maybe because the ancient Greeks lived 2500 years ago when the most of the other people in other countries were absolutely nothing! You know, only Eastern Asian civilizations, the Greeks and Romans. I think for their time they all did a lot, the rest is for us...