A theory of everything all held together with string

Half term holidays are a great time for catching up on your reading. As a long lapsed physicist I decided it was time to catch up on what happened of consequence by reading “Beyond Einstein” by physicist Michio Kaku and author Jennifer Thompson. Nothing too heavy, just the quest for the single unified theory of the universe…… They’ve decided it’s all held together by string apparently, superstrings. Think guitar strings: the same string can play many different notes. A string can be many different things. Bear in mind Einstein spent the last 30 years of his life working on this and getting nowhere, so you are forgiven if you don’t make it to the stunning conclusion at the end of this blog!

I won’t bore you why the universe was ten dimensional before Big Bang turned it 4 dimensional (time and 3D space); you’ll have to read the surprisingly accessible book for all that. I must admit I came away, long ago, from a year in a lab and 3 years study, thinking physics was pretty boring.

I was, after 4 years hard partying (and the odd tutorial), left with just two (mildly) interesting things from physics, the study and explanation of the physical world:
a) You really can drive a 4m car into a 3m long garage if you drive it near the speed of light. I can’t wait til they try that on Top Gear!
b) Obscure mathematicians scribbling on bits of paper find physical objects we didn’t know existed.

So why am I blogging on about it then? Well, because the story of the search for a unifying theory of the universe is riddled with history lessons about human beings that can be applied everyday. Many are about how hard we find it to accept new ideas. It concludes with something you can do with physics in the workplace.

…..FOR THE LESSONS GO TO www.fastandsimple.org and take a look at the paper A theory of everything and the meaning of life all held together with string

You’ll see ten lessons on thinking, on unified business and on the power of symmetry in unlocking the nature of your workplace