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The Matrix

Submission + - Surfer's Theory of Everything Stuns Physicists (arxiv.org)

Submitted by
Baldrson
Baldrson writes: "The UK Telegraph reports that: A surfer dude named Garrett Lisi has come up with a new theory of everything which physicists are calling "fabulous", "incredibly beautiful", "profound" and "most compelling". Lisi's peer-reviewed paper titled "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything" is being published with the New Scientist. The Telegraph article continues: "Lisi is now calculating the masses that the 20 new particles should have, in the hope that they may be spotted when the Large Hadron Collider starts up.""
Math

Submission + - Surfer stuns physicists with theory of everything (telegraph.co.uk) 1

Submitted by j823777
j823777 writes: GARRETT LISI is an unlikely individual to be staking a claim for a theory of everything. He has no university affiliation and spends most of the year surfing in Hawaii. In winter, he heads to the mountains near Lake Tahoe, California, to teach snowboarding. Until recently, physics was not much more than a hobby.

That hasn't stopped some leading physicists sitting up and taking notice after Lisi made his theory public on the physics pre-print archive this week (www.arxiv.org/abs/0711.0770). By analysing the most elegant and intricate pattern known to mathematics, Lisi has uncovered a relationship underlying all the universe's particles and forces, including gravity — or so he hopes. Lee Smolin at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI) in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, describes Lisi's work as "fabulous". "It is one of the most compelling unification models I've seen in many, many years," he says.
Math

Submission + - Surfer Devises 'Theory of Everything' (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by
Dylan Knight Rogers
Dylan Knight Rogers writes: "Surfer dude physicist Garrett Lisi has devised a 'theory of everything' based upon the complex mathematical constructs of the 'E8'. From the article:

E8 encapsulates the symmetries of a geometric object that is 57-dimensional and is itself is 248-dimensional. Lisi says "I think our universe is this beautiful shape." What makes E8 so exciting is that Nature also seems to have embedded it at the heart of many bits of physics. One interpretation of why we have such a quirky list of fundamental particles is because they all result from different facets of the strange symmetries of E8. Lisi's breakthrough came when he noticed that some of the equations describing E8's structure matched his own. "My brain exploded with the implications and the beauty of the thing," he tells New Scientist. "I thought: 'Holy crap, that's it!'
His most interesting treatise on physics can be found here."
Math

Submission + - Surfer dude's Theory of Everything (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: NewScientist (subscription required) and others are running a story about a promising new Theory of Everything from surfer/snowboarder/physicist, Garrett Lisi. Based on a mathematical shape called E8, An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything has many in the physics community taking notice:
"Lee Smolin at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, describes Lisi's work as "fabulous". "It is one of the most compelling unification models I've seen in many, many years," he says.
"Although he cultivates a bit of a surfer-guy image its clear he has put enormous effort and time into working the complexities of this structure out over several years," Prof Smolin tells The Telegraph.
"Some incredibly beautiful stuff falls out of Lisi's theory," adds David Ritz Finkelstein at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. "This must be more than coincidence and he really is touching on something profound."
Quickies

Submission + - Theory of everything

Submitted by wpiman
wpiman writes: A surfer has stunned the physics community by suggesting and publishing a "theory of everything". It has received some rave review from scientists. Read the paper here. What do you think?
Social Networks

Submission + - An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything

Submitted by
lrohrer
lrohrer writes: "Surfer physicist, Garrett Lisi, proposes alternative to string theory. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/11/14/scisurf114.xml Lisi's inspiration lies in the most elegant and intricate shape known to mathematics, called E8 — a complex, eight-dimensional mathematical pattern with 248 points first found in 1887, but only fully understood by mathematicians this year after workings, that, if written out in tiny print, would cover an area the size of Manhattan. E8 encapsulates the symmetries of a geometric object that is 57-dimensional and is itself is 248-dimensional. Lisi says "I think our universe is this beautiful shape.""
The Courts

Submission + - RIAA Challenges Cause Foster Fees to Double

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "The RIAA's challenges to Judge Lee R. West's order (pdf) awarding the defendant attorneys fees in Capitol v. Foster and to the "reasonableness" of Ms. Foster's attorneys' fees have not only forced the RIAA to disclose its own attorneys fees, and caused the judge to issue a second decision labeling them as "disingenuous", their motives "questionable", and their factual statements "not true", but have now caused the amount of the fees to more than double, from $55,000 to $114,000, as evidenced by Ms. Foster's supplemental fee application (pdf's)."
The Internet

Submission + - Why Vandalize Wiki's?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Why are people fascinated with vandalizing Wiki's, such as Wikia, Wikipedia, or Wikibooks? Sure, some of the reasons are obvious, such as Link Spam, but what motivates users to post full page vandalizations such as a few on Wikia, knowing those reverts will be undone shortly? What are these vandals trying to accomplish? I can understand the pride in defacing a web site that has security you need to break, but isn't it a moot point "hacking" a publicly editable site? It's an interesting social phenomenon, and I'd love to hear from the vandals themselves.

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