Volume 2 Academic Career Chapter 778 The Grand Unified Theory of Physics!
Yenching University, dormitory building.
Chen Zhou was in the room at the moment, sitting at the desk, habitually tapping the draft paper with the pen in his hand.
On the other side of the draft paper is a collection of wrong questions.
“Do we really need to jump out of the existing theoretical model framework to truly understand these four forces? Or do we need to rebuild a new theoretical model?”
Chen Zhou thought about this question and felt a little hesitant. He couldn't decide where to take the final step.
That’s right, Chen Zhou has reached the final step in his research on the grand unified theory of physics. He only needs a thin layer of window paper to break through the final difficulty.
But this layer of window paper seems to be more than just a piece of paper, it is almost like bulletproof glass.
He needs to open his mind again to truly take this last step.
This is also what Chen Zhou wanted to do, to break out of the existing theoretical model framework.
This idea does not mean completely breaking away from existing theoretical models, but rather that more divergent thinking is needed to ultimately solve the difficulty of the grand unified theory.
Essentially, research on the grand unified theory of physics cannot be completely separated from the existing theoretical model framework.
The Grand Unified Theory, also known as the theory of everything, mainly studies the need to find a unified theoretical model that can explain the four forces of gravity, electromagnetism, strong interaction, and weak interaction.
The research on this theoretical model originally originated from Maxwell's research on electromagnetism, which proved that the two aspects of the same interaction of electromagnetic phenomena can be described by the same set of equations.
Later came Einstein, who had always wanted a unified theory to explain all interactions, and he was also convinced that nature should satisfy the principle of simplicity.
But the result was regrettable. Even though he spent the rest of his life on this research, it was not completed. Even some historians of science asserted that this was a big mistake on his part.
Later, quantum mechanical effects were also incorporated into the study of this theoretical model and eventually appeared in the form of quantum electrodynamics.
Next came the electroweak unification theory, which was proposed by three physicists: Glashow, Weinberg and Salam.
This is the first successful unified theory of interaction in science, which unifies the weak interaction force and the electromagnetic force and predicts several new particles.
As a result, these three physicists won the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics, and prompted more physicists to begin further research on theoretical models that unify more forces.
But unfortunately, the three interactions, namely electromagnetic force, strong interaction force and weak interaction force, have not been truly unified so far.
Not to mention the gravity that has troubled countless physicists. It seems to be a force that is naturally separate from the other three forces and is not unified at all.
Although there are many theoretical models in the current physics community, such as the standard model and string theory , none of them can be truly verified as correct; all of them are just hypotheses.
Of course, the assumption is not necessarily wrong, but it certainly cannot be said to be correct.
Take the Standard Model for example. It is just a phenomenological theory with more than a dozen adjustable parameters, which is too arbitrary.
Although it is used to explain the most basic constituent particles of the universe and the interactions between them, and seems to be very complete, it cannot explain why either neutrinos or gamma photons exist in matter.
Not to mention gravity, which cannot be contained. The so-called graviton is just a concept and is not perfect.
But despite this, the value of these theoretical models, the research results of the physics community over such a long period of time, is real.
Chen Zhou also carried out his own research based on various theoretical models and has reached the final step now.
That is why it can be said that, essentially, his research cannot be separated from the existing theoretical model framework.
Finally, Chen Zhou put down the pen in his hand, gathered all the draft papers together, then took the collection of wrong questions and pressed it on the draft papers.
When you are in doubt, ask the wrong question collection.
This is the most effective and efficient way.
As time passed, Chen Zhou put the collection of wrong questions aside and started to sort out the draft papers that had been gathered together.
The current reality is that strong interaction, weak interaction , and electromagnetic force are all microscopic forces described by quantum mechanics, while gravity is a macroscopic force described by general relativity.
Although these two theories have been proven to be correct in their respective fields, they cannot be applied to the scope of each other's influence.
To be precise, at the particle level, the force of gravity is too weak, and general relativity cannot explain the laws of particle motion, but quantum mechanics can.
Similarly, at the level of celestial galaxies, the effects of strong interaction, weak interaction, and electromagnetic force are too weak, and quantum mechanics cannot explain the motion laws of celestial galaxies, but general relativity can.
If we change the angle and look at these two theories from a mathematical perspective, general relativity makes use of Riemannian geometry, which can consider the geometric structure of the universe to be infinitely small, because Riemannian geometry can perform infinitely small geometric abstractions.
However, due to the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics, the Riemann geometry structure is no longer accurate, resulting in a logical contradiction.
That is, when the size is so small that quantized discontinuities and random uncertainties appear, general relativity will fail and the field equations will no longer be useful.
Therefore, the biggest difficulty is the unification of gravity with the other three interaction forces.
In fact, this is what physics studies, and it has always been the end result of things that are either very small and light, like particles, or very large and heavy, like stars and galaxies.
Because there has never been a research result that combines the two natures.
Therefore, on the surface, for a certain substance, physics seems to only need macroscopic and microscopic theories.
But why must the same universe, with the same material composition, be strictly distinguished between macroscopic and microscopic scales? And why do we need different theoretical models to explain them?
The answer, of course, is that the physics community’s understanding of the universe is flawed, and the physics community needs a unified theory to integrate quantum mechanics and general relativity.
And there must be a scale that can unify the micro and macro, and unify the four most basic interaction forces.
"That is to say, we must unify quantum mechanics and general relativity, but at the same time, we must also jump out of quantum mechanics and general relativity and look at the macro and micro from a higher dimensional perspective, so as to break through the last step!"
After Chen Zhou re-examined all the draft papers and read the collection of wrong questions again and again, he finally determined the breakthrough direction for the final step.
Without any hesitation, he gathered the draft papers together again and placed them in a corner of the desk, then took out a stack of brand new A4 draft papers.
Then, the pen tip touched the paper, and the grand unified theory that revealed the model of the universe began to appear on the paper...
