The public talk I attended was The New York Academy of Science’s discussion on The Unification of Physics: The Quest for a Theory of Everything. The public talk grouped together three physicist that all focused their work on theoretical physics. Katherine Freese is the director of the Nordita – Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics, Marcelo Gleiser is a professor of Physics and Astronomy at Dartmouth College, and Max Tegmark is a professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The panel was asked various questions focused on the idea of understanding The Universe. The beginning of the discussion was on this concept of a Theory for Everything, this soon dispersed into smaller discussions that all ultimately relate towards the Theory for Everything. This public talk was extremely interesting as it elaborated on many questions I have asked my self about the cosmos.
Starting with the unification of physics, the panel clarified that this meant that theoretically the four main forces unify into one primary mother force present in all dimensions. The four forces consist of gravity, electro-magnetism, weak, and strong. Marcelo Gleiser clarifies for the audience that “When we talk about unifying physics we talk about creating a description of nature, whereby the four forces can be understood as manifestations of a single force.” Unfortunately this has been incredibly difficult to prove. So far we are able to understand how to unify electro-magnetism, weak and strong forces except for the force of gravity. However, some mathematics prove that the String Theory can unify all four forces, but lack the proper experimentation to prove said theory.
Beyond this first segment of the panel, each panel member began to show a sort of focus of interests in cosmological physics. Katherine Freese showed interest in the exploration of dark matter and energy, Marcelo Gleiser talked about the extents of our universe, and max Tegmark was most interested in understanding how consciousness works. In discussing dark matter, we start to realize how dramatically our understanding of the universe can shift when we begin to understand the majority about dark matter. It exists everywhere, and takes up 25% of the universe’s mass. Dark matter is also another way we can learn to date the Big Bang as well as discovering what lies beyond the scope of our universal horizon. We can only see the extents of the universe via the last light of our universal bubble. Beyond this bubble, the dark matter could act as a way to describe what lies beyond. Exploring the idea of understanding the consciousness is another critical field that many scientists debate is possible to understand. The notion that consciousness is quantifiable is hard to imagine, the sense of emotion and though that occurs within the mind. However, Max Tegmark explains that there is much advancement in this field through experimenting with prediction techniques and consulting the predictions of thought to the user’s actual thought.
The lecture was incredible, considering I watched Interstellar only a few days before. Understanding the universe is important in understanding ourselves. The panel even said that it is our purpose as the only intelligent beings we know of to explore and discovering how our universe works. We are the only ones who can, thus it is our purpose. Questioning is what allows us to always move forward. We begin to doubt what we know and hypothesize, experiment, record, and analyze to grow as a species. This discussion of the unification of forces to understand everything is the next, but not ultimate, quest for humans in knowing our origins.
http://www.nyas.org/Events/Detail.aspx?cid=f2d6dea2-ea83-4c5f-ab45-ca3eeaa60268
