Rock-bottom Theory of Everything?

Will the chain of explanations always face another level of mystery, or will it finally hit a rock-bottom 'theory of everything'?
- Shaikh Ayman Abdul-Majid (age 23)
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

We definitely don't know. There's a wonderful discussion of this very issue in Feynman's Character of Physical Law. The possibilities include:

1. There is a rock bottom.

A) We find it, although we can't be absolutely sure that we have.

B) It's too deep, too remote from our scale. We never find it and we know we never find it because theories never quite hang together and fit all the data.

C) We find some other level that seems complete, so far as we can tell, but isn't the real rock bottom.

2. There is no rock-bottom.

A) We know we never find it because theories never quite hang together and fit all the data, but we can't know that it doesn't exist.

B) We find some level that seems complete, so far as we can tell, but isn't.

Mike W.

(published on 05/02/2015)