After decades looking for a unified theory of physics, a renaissance of physics is long overdue. Based only on stable matter such as atoms and larger bodies, we must return to the experimentally proven theories and develop new perspectives that merge the fundamentals of physics into a unified theory of physics.
Albert Einstein spent thirty years of his life on a fruitless quest for a way to combine gravity and electro-magnetism into a single elegant theory(20). He believed there was a link between the need to resolve apparent paradoxes of quantum mechanics and the need to unify electromagnetism and gravity. Einstein always insisted that quantum mechanics could be derived from some more complete theory. In the 1920s, electromagnetism and gravity were the only known forces, and the electron and the proton were the only known subatomic particles. Excited physicists explored the bizarre and interesting consequences of the quantum theory rather than look for a theory uniting electromagnetism and gravity.
50 years later, when I left university, the physics world was still looking for a unified theory. From 1970 to 1990, I witnessed a significant decrease in reports by the scientific press of a unified theory of physics. Advances made in specific fields were technically brilliant, as demonstrated by the many new scientific and commercial products manufactured, but theoretical physics was locked into highly specialised research groups working in narrow fields; cosmologists and their Big Bang Theory, with gaps in the theory that needed fixing(21), and Particle Physicists with their ever more powerful colliders (CERN), delivering particles with minuscule lifetimes, making measurements very difficult with sightings based on data plucked from signals with excessive noise.
Continuing research from where-we-were-in-1990 was unlikely to answer my own physics questions or lead to a unified theory. Research centred on highly specialised groups working in narrow fields had to change to broad based research over many fields of physics. New perspectives and hypotheses were needed for a unified theory and revisiting the work of famous physicists of the period 1905 to 1935 seemed a good place to start.
The research method I adopted involved analysing the current view of each topic and looking at other ways of viewing the results in the search for alternative perspectives. New unifying hypotheses were sought while retaining the experimentally proven fundamentals of physics. Such analysis demands clear discrimination between the true fundamentals of physics and any of one’s own assumptions and those of popular paradigms that may not be true. The major test was to check that the mathematics consistently worked with the new hypotheses across all the fields of physics covered.
The theory of Physics in 5 Dimensions(22) retains an objective view of physics permitting figures of the Shape of Space to be drawn linking the physical and geometric parameters of universal equations of motion; valid for all moving particles and bodies associated with classical-, quantum- and Einstein’s relativistic-mechanics, e.g. atoms and its constituents, larger bodies moving on planet earth, as well as astronomical bodies and celestial objects making up the universe.
On a positive note, the new Cavendish Laboratory(23) in Cambridge (opening 2022) will launch a new era of physics with a more flexible alignment of research activities; a renaissance of physics with multi-field research without the traditional group structures.
References:
(20) Edited version of APS News Dec 2005 (Vol 14, N0 11) Physics History - Albert Einstein's quest for a unified theory
(21) Quantum Gaps in the Big Bang Theory - Scientific American April 2011 - Paul J. Steinhardt>
(22) Physics in 5 Dimensions – ISBN: 978-3-96014-233-1 / PDF at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266794606_Physics_in_5_Dimensions_Bye_bye_Big_Bang
(23) Cavendish Laboratory https://www.phy.cam.ac.uk/caviii#new
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The Book by Alan Clark- Physics in 5 Dimensions - is also available as a PDF file to members of ResearchGate here.