The Theory of Everything

Time Magazine chose him as Man of the Century. Albert Einstein had three great theories. His first theory of Special Relativity (1905) gave us E = mc², which led to the atomic bomb and unlocked the secret of the stars. His second great theory was General Relativity (1915), which gave us space warps, the Big Bang, and black holes. But many don't realize that his greatest theory was never finished: "a theory of everything". Einstein's crowning achievement was to have been the unified field theory, an attempt to "read the mind of God".

But on the third try, Einstein failed. He spent the last 30 years of his life chasing after an equation, perhaps no more than one inch long, that would explain all physical phenomena. Everything from Creation, to supernovas, to atoms and molecules, perhaps even DNA, people, and love was to be explained by this equation. If discovered, it was to have been the ultimate achievement of 2,000 years of investigation into the nature of space and matter, ever since the Greeks asked what was the smallest particle and the smallest unit of space. Although there are many unresolved questions, today the leading and, in fact, only candidate for the Theory of Everything is ‘superstring’ theory, defined in 10 dimensional hyperspace. Superstring theory, in turn may one day answer some of the deepest questions of the universe, such as:

• What happened before the big bang?
• Is it possible to build a time machine?
• Can we punch a hole in space?

CalTech

Albert Einstein never managed to "read the mind of God"

Not only has the power of this theory startled the world of mathematics and shaken the world of physics, it is also the craziest theory ever proposed.

Four fundamental forces

Today, we realize that the entire universe is governed by four fundamental forces:

• The gravitational force, which keeps us from flying into outer space, and prevents our sun (a gigantic hydrogen bomb) from exploding outward.
• The electromagnetic force, which light up our cities and energizes our lasers and our computers.
• The strong and weak nuclear forces, which lights up the stars and galaxies.

Gravity can be described by Einstein's general relativity theory. Matter warps the space surround it, thereby creating the "force" of gravity.

Imagine an ant walking on a crumpled sheet of paper. The ant would say that there was a mysterious "force" which pulled it left and right. But we know that there is no "force" pulling the ant; there is only the crumpled sheet of paper pushing the ant left and right. Gravity does not pull: empty space pushes.