A hypothesis of everything, that is not what I first thought it would be, is what I will present tomorrow at the April 2019 APS conference. Quantum Gravity, finding a way to make general relativity into a quantum theory of some kind, has been the driving mystery of my adult life.  Now, after years of work towards that, a few who have researched the problem think it was the wrong approach.  That instead we should make Quantum Field theory compatible with General Relativity in some way or the other.   Not the other way around. The talk is “Formal Unification of Gravity and Particle Physics in Lagrangian Euclidean Space with Experimental Predictions” (1) Theoretical physicists have the tough challenge of questioning the assumptions of the most stubborn person anyone can meet, themselves.

The hypothetical model that will be presented is a product of what I called “Relativization” of quantum field theory.  It is similar, in concept, to an almost simultaneously proposed idea from Sir Roger Penrose known as “Gravitization”.  In his words:

“This reversal of wording is deliberate, of course, indicating my concern with the bringing of quantum theory more in line with the principles of Einstein’s general relativity, rather than attempting to make Einstein’s theory—or any more amenable theory of gravity—into line with those of quantum mechanics (or quantum field theory).” (2).

In my words.

“The idea expressed in this short paper is that one could try incorporating QFT into GR instead of the other way around. Instead of quantizing General Relativity we relativize QFT by demanding strict adherence to the Einstein Equivalence Principle.” (3)

He published in a more mainstream journal than I did, around the same time I did. Even so I only found out about his work by chance perusal of the physics arXiv (4)!  I was floored.  Like anyone who read a Brief History of Time back in the 90’s and then read a bit more about Hawking… Penrose’s name and work would be one of the first things found.  He would be on the list of theoretical physics giants of the late 20th and early 21st century since I was in high school.

Roger Penrose came up with the same idea, same basic concept, as me at about the same time as I did. I can now die happy. Hopefully at age 120.

If I never break into the undeniable, high impact, high visibility literature. If there are always some reasons why my ideas, as stated by me, are just never good enough. The fact that a concept I came up with gains some level of acceptance is as good as it gets.

What better post publication peer review is there, in purely theoretical physics, than other people having the same basic idea?

PDF will be embedded here after the presentation. (1)

Here is my hypothesis of everything, presented, very briefly, in the same style as the math in Penrose’s journal publications.

Great Minds Think Alike.

Some who read this might think this is about priority, I officially don’t care about that. 

Lately we have seen how ugly humanity can look when such questions are asked. Unless people are getting prizes with money for it then I’ll want my cut.  Maybe a job where I don’t have to hustle quite as hard to make ends meet.  Maybe just at the jobs I have, as adjunct/part time faculty being able to teach the special research courses that do exist there… occasionally.  To be able to give my own students a chance for some small version of that kind of moment when their code really pays off, or a problem they have worked on for all semester is solved… and set them up for more.  

That is why I do what I do where I do it instead of doing the myriad other things one who “only” has a MS in physics can do.

In fact, if this is ever proven out and only sometimes called Penrose-Farmer, or even Penrose-Howl-Fuentes - two or three other names - and rarely Farmer, that would be great too.

Professionally I care about educating the public, educating my students, paying my bills, and maybe once a year hearing I did ok.   Notoriety would only be worth it if it comes with money.  Even a high-minded theoretical physicist must eat and afford a place to sleep.


*I have many colleagues in community college faculties who have several masters level degrees.  Some attained their PHD or EdD late in life. Generally, this environment is friendly and welcomes those who don’t fit the molds and who like the teaching aspects of faculty life as much as the pure research.   It is not often done and usually only our most senior and distinguished faculty get to do this, but student research for credit, as a separate course does exist at most two-year colleges.  Furthermore, science faculty at same often also work at research or industrial labs.  If not, they conduct their own projects as I do.   This paragraph is necessary because the above fact is a little-known surprise to many people even in academia.  

Bibliography

1. Formal Unification of Gravity and Particle Physics in Lagrangian Euclidean Space with Experimental Predictions. Farmer, Hontas Freeman. s.l. : American Physical Society, 2019. https://absuploads.aps.org/presentation.cfm?pid=14777

2. On the Gravitization of Quantum Mechanics 1: Quantum State Reduction. Penrose, Roger. s.l. : Springer, May 2014, Foundations of Physics, Vol. 44, pp. 557-575. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10701-013-9770-0

3. Quantum Gravity by Relativization of Quantum Field Theory. Farmer, Hontas Freeman. s.l. : The Winnower - Now Owned by Wiley, 2014, The Winnower. http://dx.doi.org/10.15200/winn.140751.17561

4. Exploring the unification of quantum theory and general relativity with a Bose-Einstein condensate. Howl, Richard, Penrose, Roger and Ivette, Fuentes. s.l. : arXiv.org. https://arxiv.org/abs/1812.04630