Chapter 190 The Road to Truth

The road to truth is rugged and far away... Countless smart people and countless geniuses have fallen on this issue.

So much so that in the minds of many people, there is a strange mentality that a "grand unified theory" does not exist.

There is of course a reason for this idea, which stems from another great theorem: Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem!

The famous mathematician Gödel once proposed a very important milestone in the history of modern logic: He proved that any formal system, as long as it includes a simple description of elementary number theory and is self-consistent, must contain some of the rules allowed in the system. The method can neither prove true nor falsify propositions.

Gödel's incompleteness theorem is a theorem that goes against common sense. It tells mankind: truth and provability are two concepts. What is provable must be true, but what is true may not be provable.

In a sense, the shadow of paradox will always be with us. No wonder the great mathematician Weyl sighed: "God exists, because mathematics is undoubtedly consistent; the devil also exists, because we cannot prove this compatibility."

What does that mean?

If you extend the concept to the entire universe and treat the operating laws of the universe as a system, then there will always be some inexplicable things that do exist.

People may be able to discover them, but these things cannot be classified into existing systems. They just exist inexplicably.

Perhaps, "gravity" is such an inexplicable thing that a "grand unified theory" may not exist.

The road to seeking truth is always so long and arduous. Maybe humans can find a grand unified theory, or maybe humans will never find it...

It may also be that the system of relativity and quantum mechanics are inherently separated from each other. Who knows?

Is the universe knowable?

The theme of compulsory education and materialism tells us: the universe is knowable.

However, due to the uncertainty principle of microscopic particles and Gödel's incompleteness theorem, the foundation of knowability has been shaken.

The universe is not necessarily knowable.

Man cannot break into God, he can only attack the darkness that surrounds the Divine. He threw the fire into the cold night, and the night retreated, but only retreated. Through the efforts of generations, people spend countless efforts to eliminate the darkness around them bit by bit.

When people complacently thought that they were about to face the light, the building of classical physics suddenly collapsed, and the two dark clouds became bigger and bigger. People unexpectedly discovered that beyond the darkness, there was a greater, almost infinite darkness...

In this case, should I spend my life exploring mysteries that may never be solved?

Humans are very strange animals. They sometimes abandon their interests and fight purely for their beliefs...

Gravity remains a complex and unsolvable mystery in almost all models.

At present, the most promising way to describe the entire universe is called "string theory." String theory, including the subsequently developed M theory, can not only resolve the contradiction between quantum mechanics and general relativity, but is also one of the solutions to quantum gravity. It is likely to become the ultimate theory of the universe.

"String theory" proposes that the universe originally had eleven dimensions, and then an explosion occurred, causing some of the dimensions to shrink into the space of elementary particles.

But so far, string theory is only a rough framework, with many equally possible solutions. There are as many different model solutions as there are mosquitoes in the grass, and with current technology, they cannot be tested, falsified, or used to predict...

People have only touched its edges, and there are large stretches of blank space in the middle.

Therefore, string theory is just an empty shell, and there is no way to clarify whether it is right or wrong. For scientists, if they want to perfect string theory, it can only be said to be a series in their lifetime... It is simply not something that current scientific theories can achieve.

Experts who discuss string theory, these smartest minds, always show a blank expression, so that they look dull. However, please don’t laugh at them. They are spending their lifetimes fighting against the infinite mysteries of the universe...

They know that this problem may be difficult to solve in their own lifetime, but they still continue to study it firmly... Because if they don't take this road, no one in the world will take it. This road that may lead to the ultimate truth may It was broken.

There are many different roads, where is peace now? When will we be able to break through the waves?

The road has to be taken step by step. In the end, the ultimate string theory will be out of business for a while, and scientists will not be discouraged. They will start to look for other more pragmatic theories.

Einstein, the greatest scientist of the 20th century, once had the idea of ​​"one field theory". He wanted to integrate electromagnetic force into the gravitational framework of general relativity, trying to unify the four basic forces. (If realized, electromagnetic force could be used to create gravity.)

So much so that Einstein struggled for the rest of his life, but in the end more than 30 years of scientific efforts seemed to yield nothing...

Mr. Einstein said that it wasn’t that he didn’t work hard, it was just that it was too difficult and as meaningless as a mess of yarn. There was really nothing he could do and he could only leave this problem to future generations...

Later, people proposed the concept of "grand unified energy scale". Many scientists have always believed that at very high energy levels, the basic interactions of the microscopic world: the strong interaction and the electroweak interaction can be unified into a single specification. Under the group.

But what is frustrating is that this belief was disproven by experimental data, so that many scientists could not sleep all night, and they felt that their faith had collapsed.

However, the rise of supersymmetry theory gave them hope again, so that the belief in the "grand unified energy scale" was changed to the belief in "supersymmetry theory"... As long as supersymmetry is correct, there is still hope for the grand unified energy scale.

Then, a new type of SU (5) theory predicted proton decay, and people also gave people hope for a unified theory, but it seemed to be rejected by experiments...

Then, needless to say, the simplest version of supersymmetry theory that people had high hopes for was also ruled out by experiments in the early 21st century... Another wave of faith collapse, people's disappointment and frustration needless to say.

So much so that people can't see the end of the road ahead...

Failure!

Failure!

Failure!

The road to truth is so bumpy!

Such a theory cannot be completed in a few hours by just drawing and writing, but requires years or even decades to correct and improve.

What kind of mood would you feel when you have studied something for a lifetime, and have spent your whole life believing in and seeking the truth, but find that it is all wrong and meaningless?

Such a failure seems to deny the meaning of the researcher's life.

Just like the great Einstein, who struggled for thirty years, but in the eyes of modern people, the methods and concepts he used were wrong. So that the last thirty years seemed to have gained nothing, and no results worth mentioning for modern physics research were obtained.

People think that his last 30 years of research are meaningless. If there were no great achievements in the past, and only the last thirty years, Einstein would be forgotten.

People only remember success, not failure.

Time is the cruelest. Countless losers who pursue the truth, countless great figures, are gradually moving away from their dreams of unity, gradually fading away, gradually moving away from people, and slowly disappearing in the ruthless years of history...

Lucky ones study the standard model and win the Nobel Prize, and unlucky ones can only be forgotten. Their names will gradually move away from people's sight.

Life is short, only a hundred years, why do we have to search hard on this rugged road?

Who knows?

Perhaps the most advanced and intelligent humans and ordinary people have two different ways of thinking.

In this way, the new human civilization and the previous human civilization are also two different civilizations...