The Holy Grail of Physics

From the incredibly tiny to the amazingly big, there has been quite a number of theories made to explain the behavior of matter in our world. 

During Isaac Newton's time, he released a book titles "Principia" which accurately describes the motion of matter. It is usually referred to as Classical physics. This was used for decades to explain the behavior of matter on most scales and it's still implemented till today.

Then come 1905, Albert Einstein, in his radical and creative mind discovered a new way to look at physics of motion. You see, Newton's classical physics describes motion with respect to only one frame of reference which remains constant in every situation but this didn't sound so logical to Einstein so he decided to think outside of the box and what he got from doing that was Special relativity.

Now unlike classical physics, special relativity takes into consideration the various frames of references with respect to the observer. Thinking about it is just truly spectacular since it explains a lot of things that classical physics struggled to explain. It also brought in new concepts into physics. Let's talk about a few of them.

Time dilation: Perhaps the most popular of all concepts, it shows just how flexible time can be. If you have watched Star Trek or some other sci-fi movie, then you are not new to this concept. Time dilation simply refers to the capricious behavior of time as one speeds increases. Put in a simpler way, if you increase your velocity relative to an observer, time moves more slowly for you than the observer. Hence you would age a bit less compared to the observer. It happens every day but the effect is so minuscule with the velocity we move with. For example, those in the International Space Station (ISS) are, on average 13milliseconds younger than us here on the surface of the earth. So you could say we're basically still the same age as them. As you increase your speed to a fraction of the speed of light (c), say 30%, you'd start to see the effects a lot more. For instance, let's say there is a set of twins. One twin stays here on earth while the other accelerates to a considerable percent of the speed of light. Upon arrival of the second back to earth, will the twins still the same age? 

No, they will not be. Now, time travels a lot slower for the second twin and as so, he ages considerably lesser than the one here on Earth. Looking at it from another perspective, you could say the twins are moving away relative to each other so how could only one have aged less while the other does not?

This arises to what is known as the Twin Paradox.

Length Contraction: This is also referred to as Lorentz-FitzGerald Contraction (named after Hendrick Lorentz and George Francis FitzGerald. It is a phenomenon where the length of an object contracts on moving. It is extremely apparent at relativistic speeds. It occurs only in the direction of the motion if the object. So an observer looking at an object moving by at a significant speed will see the object as shorter in length. This is not due to errors or faulty observations, it is actually true. After experiments from a stationary frame of reference, it is noticed that the object's length actually reduces in length in the direction of motion. Read more on length contraction here.

Simultaneity:  According to Wikipedia, simultaneity is the relation between two events assumed to be happening at the same time in a given frame of reference. This gives rise to Relativity of Simultaneity where the distant simultaneity of two events separated in space occurring at the same time is not absolute. As one of the implications of special relativity, Einstein theorized that it is quite impossible to say in an absolute sense that two distinct events occur simultaneously if those events are separated spatially ( that is separated in space). Read more on simultaneity here.

After the wild potential that special relativity gave, Einstein dropped a bombshell about ten years later in the year 1915 which rocked the physics world and is said to have revolutionized physics, revealing new possibilities never even imagined before. You must have heard of it. It is the General Theory of Relativity. It effectively explained the physics of the large more than any other and still continues to prove it's consistency even till today. I shall discuss this later.

Now all through we've been talking about the physics of the big. Let's talk about the physics of the tiny ( well the incredibly tiny). There is but one theory ruling this field of study and that is Quantum mechanics. Albert Einstein was one of the pioneers of this theory but could not bring himself to accepting even after putting so much in it. He said the infamous quote: "God does not play dice". Quite ironic isn't it? But he wasn't wrong. Quantum mechanics is more like a game of probability than a theory. From the two-slit experiment which shows that a particle can exist as a wave and both a particle until measurements are done to the Schrodinger's cat that exists as both dead and alive until measurements take place which forces it to assume one state.

Yes, it is truly mind-blowing and it has great potential as it already has its hand in some of the most innovative technology we have in our ecosystem today but the implementation is a lot difficult than understanding.

Since you've been waiting, what is the Holy Grail of physics?

Well, it's a unified theory. More explicitly, it's a theory of everything. Quantum mechanics and General Theory of Relativity does not mix so well together. As so it is extremely difficult to combine these two as they work for very opposite fields. Though there are other theories that are being made in order to make the theory of everything, the most notable being the Superstring theory (Michio Kaku being one of the founders of this theory).

Taking a crash course, it just states that the tiniest bit of matter is not spherical objects like protons or muons but strings of Planck's length which vibrates in different dimensions to make other subatomic particles. Some variations of this theory require about eleven dimensions while some others need an absurd twenty-six dimensions in order to make all possible particle in the universe. 

The upside to this theory is that it easily explains everything and fits the required characteristics of a true theory of everything. The big downside is that everything just stated is highly theoretical. There is currently no way of proving the theory. Another downside is the amount of dimensions needed for this theory is just a little crazy, don't you think? 

Daily, scientist all over the world try their best every minute of the day to bring a unified theory to reality and at the rate we humans develop, it's just a matter of time.