Antony Garrett Lisi (born January 24, 1968), known as Garrett Lisi, is an American

theoretical physicist Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain, and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experi ...

. Lisi works as an independent researcher without an academic position. Lisi is known for "

An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything" is a physics preprint proposing a basis for a unified field theory, often referred to as "E8 Theory", which attempts to describe all known fundamental interactions in physics and to stand as a possibl ...

," an unpublished preprint paper proposing a

unified field theory In physics, a Unified Field Theory (UFT) or “Theory of Everything” is a type of field theory that allows all fundamental forces of nature, including gravity, and all elementary particles to be written in terms of a single physical field. Ac ...

based on the E Lie group, combining

particle physics Particle physics or high-energy physics is the study of Elementary particle, fundamental particles and fundamental interaction, forces that constitute matter and radiation. The field also studies combinations of elementary particles up to the s ...

with Einstein's theory of gravitation. The theory is incomplete and has unresolved problems. The theory has been extensively criticized in the scientific community.

Biography

Education and career

Lisi was born in Los Angeles and raised in San Diego, California. He graduated from Cate School in 1987. Lisi went on to receive two B.S. degrees with highest honors in physics and mathematics from the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

, in 1991. Lisi received a Ph.D. in physics from the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Es ...

, in 1999. Lisi then left academia. In July 2006, Lisi was awarded an

FQXi The Foundational Questions Institute, styled FQxI (formerly FQXi), is an organization that provides grants to "catalyze, support, and disseminate research on questions at the foundations of physics and cosmology." It was founded in 2005 by cosmolog ...

grant to conduct research in quantum mechanics and unification. In June 2007, Lisi thought that the algebraic structure he had constructed in an attempt to unify the

standard model The Standard Model of particle physics is the Scientific theory, theory describing three of the four known fundamental forces (electromagnetism, electromagnetic, weak interaction, weak and strong interactions – excluding gravity) in the unive ...

of particle physics with

general relativity General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity, and as Einstein's theory of gravity, is the differential geometry, geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of grav ...

partially matched part of the algebraic structure of the E

Lie group In mathematics, a Lie group (pronounced ) is a group (mathematics), group that is also a differentiable manifold, such that group multiplication and taking inverses are both differentiable. A manifold is a space that locally resembles Eucli ...

. In July 2007, Lisi traveled to the inaugural FQXi conference in

Reykjavík Reykjavík is the Capital city, capital and largest city in Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland on the southern shore of Faxaflói, the Faxaflói Bay. With a latitude of 64°08′ N, the city is List of northernmost items, the worl ...

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

, to give several academic talks. Lisi's paper, "

", was posted to the

arXiv arXiv (pronounced as "archive"—the X represents the Chi (letter), Greek letter chi ⟨χ⟩) is an open-access repository of electronic preprints and postprints (known as e-prints) approved for posting after moderation, but not Scholarly pee ...

on 6 November 2007. His theory was discussed on major physics

blogs A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

and reported by media sources in several countries. Lisi presented his theory at the

TED Conference TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "Ideas Change Everything" (previously "Ideas Worth Sprea ...

on 28 February 2008, and has since presented several academic talks and colloquia. The theory has been extensively criticized in the scientific community. Back in 2008, ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it, with more than 150 Nobel Pri ...

'' stated, "Today the theory is being largely but not entirely ignored". In July 2009, at a FQXi conference in the Azores, Lisi made a public bet with

Frank Wilczek Frank Anthony Wilczek ( or ; born May 15, 1951) is an American theoretical physicist, mathematician and Nobel laureate. He is the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Founding Director ...

that superparticles would not be detected by 8 July 2015. After a one-year extension to allow for more data collection from the

Large Hadron Collider The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. It was built by the CERN, European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) between 1998 and 2008, in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists, ...

, Frank Wilczek conceded the superparticle bet to Lisi in 2016.

Physics research

Quantum mechanics

On 8 May 2006, in an arXiv preprint, "Quantum mechanics from a universal action reservoir," Lisi proposed that the

path integral formulation The path integral formulation is a description in quantum mechanics that generalizes the stationary action principle of classical mechanics. It replaces the classical notion of a single, unique classical trajectory for a system with a sum, or ...

quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical Scientific theory, theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Addison-Wesley, 1989, It is ...

can be derived from

information theory Information theory is the mathematical study of the quantification (science), quantification, Data storage, storage, and telecommunications, communication of information. The field was established and formalized by Claude Shannon in the 1940s, ...

and the existence of a universal action reservoir.

An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything

Lisi's main work in theoretical physics is his Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything. It proposes a

combining a grand unification theory of

with

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

's general relativistic description of

gravitation In physics, gravity (), also known as gravitation or a gravitational interaction, is a fundamental interaction, a mutual attraction between all massive particles. On Earth, gravity takes a slightly different meaning: the observed force b ...

, using the largest

simple Simple or SIMPLE may refer to: *Simplicity, the state or quality of being simple Arts and entertainment * ''Simple'' (album), by Andy Yorke, 2008, and its title track * "Simple" (Florida Georgia Line song), 2018 * "Simple", a song by John ...

exceptional Lie algebra In mathematics, an exceptional Lie algebra is a complex Complex commonly refers to: * Complexity, the behaviour of a system whose components interact in multiple ways so possible interactions are difficult to describe ** Complex system, a system ...

, E. Lisi stated that

gravity In physics, gravity (), also known as gravitation or a gravitational interaction, is a fundamental interaction, a mutual attraction between all massive particles. On Earth, gravity takes a slightly different meaning: the observed force b ...

, the

bosons In particle physics, a boson ( ) is a subatomic particle whose spin quantum number has an integer value (0, 1, 2, ...). Bosons form one of the two fundamental classes of subatomic particle, the other being fermions, which have half odd-integer ...

and

fermions In particle physics, a fermion is a subatomic particle that follows Fermi–Dirac statistics. Fermions have a half-integer spin ( spin , spin , etc.) and obey the Pauli exclusion principle. These particles include all quarks and leptons and ...

can be unified as parts of an E superconnection. The theory, called ''E Theory'', also predicts the existence of many new particles. He then designed a web application, the ''Elementary Particle Explorer'', for visualizing the charge structure of the elementary particles in the standard model, in grand unified theories, and in E Theory. Lisi's theory has been extensively criticized in the scientific community. Lisi acknowledges that his theory is incomplete. In a ''

'' post, Lisi stated, "(the 3 generation) … issue remains the most significant problem, and until it is solved the theory is not complete and cannot be considered much more than a speculative proposal. Without fully describing how the three generations of fermions work, the theory and all predictions from it remain tenuous." In June 2010, Lisi posted "An explicit embedding of gravity and the Standard Model in E", and in 2015 an update and generalization, "Lie group cosmology", in which he claims to have solved the 3 generations problem. The 2015 paper remains unpublished.

''Invention USA''

In 2011 and 2012, Lisi co-hosted '' Invention USA'' (with Reichart von Wolfsheild), a two-season, reality TV series on the

History channel History (formerly and commonly known as the History Channel) is an American pay television television broadcaster, network and the flagship channel of A&E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and the Disney General Entertainme ...

. Lisi was replaced as co-host by Scotty Ziegler in the second season.

References

External links

* * * – an application designed by Lisi * – Lisi's personal research wiki * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lisi, Antony Garrett 1968 births 21st-century American physicists American surfers Independent scientists Living people American particle physicists Scientists from Los Angeles American theoretical physicists University of California, Los Angeles alumni University of California, San Diego alumni