Universe on a T-Shirt: The Quest for the Theory of Everything
By Dan Falk
Viking Canada, 246 pages, $34
Before celebrity scientists like Stephen Hawking, before space-time unity and wave-particle duality, before strings, quarks and bosons, long before electromagnetic motors and a periodic table of elements, before Galileo and his telescope, before the geometric proofs of Euclid, there was Thales of Miletus. And Thales did thus proclaim: The universe is made of water.
A century later, around 450 BC, a vain, self-assured philosopher-poet, Empedocles, proposed what he took to be a more accurate and complete model of physical reality. The universe, Empedocles declared, was made not only of water, but also of fire, earth and air.
As Dan Falk details in the narrative arc of his new book, Universe on a T-Shirt, scientists have been preoccupied with the search for unity in the laws of nature ever since. The meandering course of this quest has culminated this century with concerted effort to find a single "theory of everything" -- an entire description of the universe phrased in a closed system of mathematical truths -- an entire description of the universe phrased in a closed system of mathematical truths. Today a TOE sits before physicists like a Rubik's Cube in a state of maddening near-completeness, four and one-half out of six sides a uniform colour. Or at least some scientists believe so.
The story of the hunt for a T-shirt-friendly, one-inch long equation that "would describe the mind of God," as physicist Michio Kaku once phrased it in an interview with me, and as Stephen hawking has said, is not entirely new. Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe and Timothy Ferris's The Whole Shebang, to mention two recent books, trek over much of the same technical ground covered by Falk. Nonetheless, with economy and perspective honed by his years as a broadcaster and science writer (for The Globe and Mail, among others), Falk delivers a readable, entertaining and fresh take on the subject. Most significant, he has achieved something original: More cleverly and cleanly than anything I can recall reading, the book itself unifies the story of the search for unifying principles in science.
The term "unifying," in this case, means explaining more features of the world using less language -- that language, in science, being mathematics. A 14th-century Franciscan monk, William of Ockham, articulated the idea when he said, "Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity." Known as Ockham's razor, the dictum has achieved immortality emblazoned to the cubicle walls of math and science graduate students.
Newton's laws of motion and universal gravitation are arguably the most spectacular advancement of the unification principle in human history. Only a few hundred years removed from the Dark Ages, Newton invented a new kind of mathematics (calculus) then applied it to deduce a couple of laws that could explain everything from the timing of tides to the paths of projectiles and the elliptical orbits of the planets.
Another major unification occurred in the mid-19th century, when Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell discovered that electricity could produce magnetism and magnetism could induce electrical current. Maxwell's electromagnetic field equations unified all known facts about electricity and magnetism into one concise theory. Early in the last century, Einstein's two theories of relativity unified space and time, and energy and mass.
Falk fleshes out the social backgrounds and personalities of the scientists, adding elements of colour and drama to this already compelling story. For much of its history, Falk informs us, science was not greatly distinguishable from religion, philosophy and mythology. Johannes Kepler, whose own laws of planetary motion confirmed a sun-centred solar system, practised a type of numerology; Newton studied alchemy and was obsessed with trying to predict the date of Armegeddon. Indeed, most of the men whose breakthrough discoveries most advanced the pursuit of scientific unity were oddballs of one flavour or another. All had a high tolerance for the creative destruction required for solving Rubik's Cube-type puzzles, typically dismantling old theories while inventing new, more powerful ones with fresh insights and techniques. Most faced the scorn (or worse) of their society and their peers.
Today, the discovery of a theory of everything hinges on finding a mathematical method of uniting the four fundamental forces of nature -- electromagnetism, weak and strong nuclear force, and gravity. The so-called Standard Model, based on quantum theory, unites electromagnetism and strong and weak nuclear forces, but neglects gravity.
Here it seems the mind of God has hurled a monkey wrench into mankind's ultimate unification project by requiring the human brain to invent a theoretical means of reconciling a force that operates over long ranges (gravity) with forces that operate at atomic level. The most promising candidate is string theory, which proposes that the universe at its most fundamental level is composed of tiny loops of strings, not particles. How tiny are these strings? It would take a thousand billion billion of them to stretch across an atomic nucleus.
String theory, in a variation known as M-theory, does unite gravity with the other three forces. However, pulling off this bit of mathematical magic entails that the universe be composed of 11 or 26 dimensions, which are considerably more than the four (three spatial, one temporal) consigned to our daily experience. The extra dimensions are thought to be "curled up" inside ordinary space-time. As well, the theory presently cannot be tested, which some scientists contend brings it nearer religion than science.
Falk does an adequate job of describing the basics of string theory. This counter-intuitive, brain-teaser of a theory, however, poses the biggest challenge to the book's clipped, tight structure. Readers who want to understand fully why most physicists are lining up behind string theory as the only game in town for a TOE will have to invest some time reading Kaku, Ferris or others.
This is a minor quibble. Falk has wisely conceived the exact limits of his topic and written the rare science book that neither rushes over the head of the reader nor patronizes her into somnolence. Fittingly, the book ends with a philosophical frolic, the equivalent of an aerobic cool-down period for science-book readers. Here we are nudged back gently into our everyday world, reminded not to expect a theory of everything to solve all our problems or answer all our questions. Not surprising, but in some way reassuring. Michael R. LeGault is the editor of a technical/business trade publication and a freelance science journalist.