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 experime ...

. Lisi works as an independent researcher without an academic position. Lisi is known for " An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything," a paper proposing a

unified field theory In physics, a unified field theory (UFT) is a type of field theory that allows all that is usually thought of as fundamental forces and elementary particles to be written in terms of a pair of physical and virtual fields. According to the modern ...

based on the E Lie group, combining

particle physics Particle physics or high energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standard Model as fermions (matter particles) an ...

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 Cate School is a highly selective, coeducational university-preparatory school for boarding and day students in grades 9-12 located in Carpinteria, California, eleven miles from Santa Barbara. The school has a current enrollment of 270 students ...

in 1987. Lisi went on to receive two

B.S. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University ...

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 land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California S ...

, in 1991. Lisi received a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

in physics from the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is t ...

, in 1999. Lisi then left academia. In July 2006, Lisi was awarded an FQXi 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 of particle physics with

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

partially matched part of the algebraic structure of the E Lie group. In July 2007, Lisi traveled to the inaugural FQXi conference in

Reykjavík Reykjavík ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói bay. Its latitude is 64°08' N, making it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. With a po ...

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

, to give several academic talks. Lisi's paper, "An exceptionally simple theory of everything", was posted to the

arXiv arXiv (pronounced "archive"—the X represents the 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 peer review. It consists of ...

on 6 November 2007. His theory was discussed on major physics blogs 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 worth spreading". TED was founded by Richard Sau ...

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 America" 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 (; born May 15, 1951) is an American theoretical physicist, mathematician and Nobel laureate. He is currently the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Founding Direc ...

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, 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 action principle of classical mechanics. It replaces the classical notion of a single, unique classical trajectory for a system with a sum, or functional i ...

quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistr ...

can be derived from information theory 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 A Grand Unified Theory (GUT) is a model in particle physics in which, at high energies, the three gauge interactions of the Standard Model comprising the electromagnetic, weak, and strong forces are merged into a single force. Although this ...

with

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...

's general relativistic description of gravitation, 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 Johnn ...

exceptional Lie algebra In mathematics, an exceptional Lie algebra is a complex simple Lie algebra whose Dynkin diagram is of exceptional (nonclassical) type. There are exactly five of them: \mathfrak_2, \mathfrak_4, \mathfrak_6, \mathfrak_7, \mathfrak_8; their respective ...

, E. Lisi stated that

gravity In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 1038 times weaker than the stro ...

, the standard model

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 odd half-integer ...

and

fermions In particle physics, a fermion is a particle that follows Fermi–Dirac statistics. Generally, it has a half-odd-integer spin: spin , spin , etc. In addition, these particles obey the Pauli exclusion principle. Fermions include all quarks 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 ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...

'' 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.

''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 The History Channel from January 1, 1995 to February 15, 2008, stylized as HISTORY) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by A&E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and the Disney ...

. 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 Particle physicists People from Los Angeles Theoretical physicists University of California, Los Angeles alumni University of California, San Diego alumni