[stevemc2]

Hi Everyone,

1. Where are you from.
Originally Maysville, KY, currently Atlanta, GA

2. How did you locate the website.
Kept clicking science topic links until I found this site. I think I started out with Wikipedia's link on Garrett Lisi's new ToE.

3. What got you interested in the Theory of Everything.
In high school, (long ago), I read concurrently "The Story of Quantum Mechanics," by Guillemin; "The Cosmic Frontiers of General Relativity," by Kaufman; and "From Atoms to Quarks," by Trefil. This was after my interest was piqued by my freshman science teacher discussing in 1979 that year's Nobel Prize in Physics for Weinberg/Salaam/Glashow's contributions to the theory of the unified weak and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles.

4. Do you have a unique perspective? I think so, for example it doesn't make sense to me that gravity as a force arises from curved spacetime, while the other forces arise from particle exchanges. Also, I don't think consciousness causes collapse in quantum mechanics. Relativity and quantum mechanics may be just ways of describing the results of the underlying ToE. I am sort of now partial to Bohm's "Implicate Order" ideas, and on a related note, I think Jung's synchronicity ideas somehow fit in with Bohm's thinking. I think describing time as a dimension may be incorrect, as time per se may not exist, other than that's how our brains are wired to view reality. That is, in 3 second increments of consciousness, which our brains think of as moments. And, I think the current complexity of string/M theory violates Occam's Razor principle, but that's no reason to toss it out as a contender at this point, as it may be able to be simplified. Lastly, I think there may be a fifth force, which is being researched currently by University of Washington's Eot-Wash group.

5. Where did you go to school and what did you study.
Georgetown College, studied physics and mathematics, plus a couple of years of nuclear engineering courses from the U.S. Government labs, including the NRC's reactor simulators.

6. What areas are you most familiar with or interested in.
Per number 5, nuclear engineering, I'm a nuclear plant inspector, and used to be an International Atomic Energy Agency Inspector.

7. Have you written any books or publications?
Yes, I'll put up details later.

8. What past influences have shaped your opinion of our world and its greater reality. This might be family, culture, education, various leaders, scientists, religion, personal experience, etc.
I went to Catholic school for 12 years, and of course there was a regular education on religion and sometimes these led to discussions of metaphysics.

Thanks for letting me join!
Stevemc2