You might have heard of four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force. There’s a nice series of posts on the old Quantum Diaries blog that explains electroweak unification in detail. To show you what I mean, let me start with something physicists already know: electroweak unification. A real unified theory doesn’t just aid our calculations, it gives us new ways to alter the world. When we hope to find a unified theory, we do so because it does something. We already plumb intersections between fields, including optics and thermodynamics. It’s not merely a matter of two topics intersecting, or describing them with the same math. When physicists seek after unification, we’re talking about something quite specific. This passage sounds nice enough, but I feel like there’s a misunderstanding behind it. Classifications like ‘optics’ or ‘thermodynamics’ are just straitjackets, preventing physicists from seeing countless intersections. Physics admits of a lovely unification, not just at the level of fundamental forces, but when considering its extent and implications. While typing up a response, I came across this passage, in a science fiction short story by Ted Chiang. Recently, a commenter asked me what physicists mean when they say two forces unify.
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