Talk:Theory of everything
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Is "The Relevance of Physics" a reliable source?
[edit]Our content says:
- The Benedictine priest and science writer Stanley Jaki, in his 1966 book The Relevance of Physics, suggested that Gödel's theorem casts doubt on the "theory of everything" will certainly be a consistent non-trivial mathematical theory, it must be incomplete. He claims that this dooms searches for a deterministic theory of everything.
In my opinion this does not accurately summarize the quote on the page for Stanley Jaki, but before fixing it I think the source is not reliable anyway. It is written as philosophy not physics and uncited as far as I can tell. Johnjbarton (talk) 23:15, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
Inconsistent definition of article topic.
[edit]The Name section of the article claims that John Ellis introduced the term "theory of everything" in his work
- Ellis, John. "The superstring: theory of everything, or of nothing?." Nature 323.6089 (1986): 595-598.
which is about theories that "...may unite the four fundamental forces." This is the definition I associate with the title of the article. The Weinberg book, "Dreams of a Final Theory The Scientist's Search for the Ultimate Laws of Nature" does not use the phrase "theory of everything" as far as Google Search goes, but his description of a "final theory" on page 18 is exactly the same.
However the opening statement of the article is completely different and frankly ridiculous:
- A theory of everything (TOE), final theory, ultimate theory, unified field theory, or master theory is a hypothetical singular, all-encompassing, coherent theoretical framework of physics that fully explains and links together all aspects of the universe.
So what is this article about? Johnjbarton (talk) 00:07, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
- After looking in to a few sources it is clear that the technical professional physics community largely considers TOE to be a quantum gravity theory consistent with or superceding the Standard Model but that philosophy and popular accounts use the same name for any theory that "explains everything". I have started to adjust the article in that direction. We should be on the lookout for a source that says this explicitly, maybe the Kargh history? Johnjbarton (talk) 22:06, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks, yes it needed that reworking. Keep it focused on the term of art, not the much more vague popular notion. - Parejkoj (talk) 15:37, 25 July 2025 (UTC)