At long last, a unified theory combining gravity with the other fundamental forces—electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces—is within reach. Bringing gravity into the fold has been the goal of generations of physicists, who have struggled to reconcile the incompatibility of two cornerstones of modern physics: quantum field theory and Einstein's theory of gravity.

Although the theory is promising, the duo point out that they have not yet completed its proof. The theory uses a technical procedure known as renormalization, a mathematical way of dealing with infinities that show up in the calculations.

So far Partanen and Tulkki have shown that this works up to a certain point—for so-called ‘first order’ terms—but they need to make sure the infinities can be eliminated throughout the entire calculation.

“If renormalization doesn’t work for higher order terms, you’ll get infinite results. So it’s vital to show that this renormalization continues to work,” explains Tulkki. “We still have to make a complete proof, but we believe it’s very likely we’ll succeed.”

    • solrize@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      40 minutes ago

      ToE is generally taken to mean a theory that accounts for all four fundamental forces in physics, 1) strong nuclear force, 2) electromagnetism, 3) weak nuclear force (unified in some way with electromagnetism now), 4) gravity. The “standard model” only handles the first three, with gravity being separate and very mysterious. I’m skeptical of this new paper on various grounds but who knows.