Text Box: Reviewed 7 July 2007 Requests for clarifications to eugenesittampalam (at) gmail.com – most welcome!
Text Box: In our century it was Albert Einstein who most explicitly pursued the goal of a final theory... The last thirty years of Einstein’s life were largely devoted to a search for a so-called unified field theory that would unify James Clerk Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism with the general theory of relativity, Einstein’s theory of gravitation. Einstein’s attempt was not successful, and with hindsight we can now see that it was misconceived. Not only did Einstein reject quantum mechanics; the scope of his effort was too narrow. Electromagnetism and gravitation happen to be the only fundamental forces that are evident in everyday life (and the only forces that were known when Einstein was a young man), but there are other kinds of force in nature... Nevertheless Einstein’s struggle is our struggle today. It is the search for a final theory. Steven Weinberg (Nobel Laureate 1979), Dreams of a Final Theory, Vintage, UK, 1993; p 13
Text Box: Then [Fermi] delivered his verdict in a quiet, even voice. "There are two ways of doing calculations in theoretical physics", he said. "One way, and this is the way I prefer, is to have a clear physical picture of the process that you are calculating. ..." A meeting with Enrico Fermi, Freeman Dyson (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton), Nature 427, 297 (2004)