[subversion]

exactly one third of the people say the TOE will never be solved and exactly two thirds say it will. Does that constitute a landslide jury? Incidentally, the status on the "are superluminal speeds possible?" poll is split two thirds to one thirds as well, in favor of superluminal! What tell us these numbers?

[undef00]

except for me

[Guille]

Let me make a study about this poll, and try to use some math to calculate some interesting data that I hope helps to guide a bit about the tendecies here.

The 33.33% of the people, exactly one third, that have voted in this poll have voted to the defence that the TOE will never be solved. This is 75 people. I think we can divide them in to two groups: the ones that believe humans aren't smart or prepeared enough, and the ones that think there is no TOE.

The 66.66% of the people , exactly two thirds, that have voted in this poll have voted to the defence that the TOE will be/has been solved. This is 150 people. I think that we can divide them in two groups: the ones that believe that humans are smart or prepeared enough, and the ones that think there is a TOE already.

These people, came along this site, and decided to vote in this thread. That means that they were highly probably looking either for theories of everything, information about theories of everytihng, or discussions about theories of everything. I am sure enough that the 99.99% of the people that would come by coincidence to this site, or by mistake, without searching physics, or toe, wouldn't vote in this poll (maybe wouldn't know what TOE stands for!). By this paragraph, I only want to state that the tendencies represented in this poll and the other polls of this site are NOT representative of the opinions of humanity or society. These poll results represent the opinion about physicists, phyisics amateurs, retired physicists, and other physics or TOE related people.

Now, the distribution between the TOEPs (Theory Of Everything Positivists) is shown like this:
Already been solved: 14.67% (33)
Within 5 years: 7.56% (17)
Within 10 years: 6.67% (15)
Within 25 years: 13.33% (30)
Within 100 years: 16.44% (37)
Within 500 years 8.00% (18 )

Analizing this by all the mathematical techniques that I know about, we can find no order of increase or decrease, not even a regular basis of ups and downs, there is a very big dificulty to know how many people would vote for 1,000 years period. But this is how the human mind works. Let us then analize this psycologically, not mathematically.

There is around 1/4 of the people that are TOEPs that believe there IS a TOE. They probably all enter in these two groups: those who are obsessed with a present proposition for the TOE (ex: string theory, heim theory...) or those who have a TOE themselves. This tells us that these two kind of people are extremists, and as we have learned by experience, extremism isn't good, so they are WRONG, although they are many, and this should give them importance, but no.

Less than the half of those who believe that the TOE has been invented, believe that there will be one in 5 years time. I can be sure that these can also be divided in two groups, and they are just "moderations" of the two groups previously presented: they either believe that a present theory is not fullfilled or just needs verification by experiment, or that the TOE they ahve is either not yet absolutely completed or prooved by experiment, but will soon be. These two groups are also extremists, and as there is no theory that I, at least, have read that can bcome TOE in 5 years time, we can exclude this possibility.

Nearly 1% less there is for the idea of a TOE in 10 years. This is because 10 years is not very "good-looking" for many many people, because they are either tooo moderate, and believe there must be a much more time than that, or they are the previouslly mentioned, the ones that are extremists and 10 years is too much for them. Well, I will tell you all people something, I believe, and have strong thinks to make me think this, that 10 years is a very possible year, and at least if not a TOE, there will be the basis for the understanding of the universe.

Nearly another 1/4 of the TOEPs believe that it will be in 25 years time. I voted this period. But this was because I believed in string theory very strongly. Now I know that 25 years is not that importna,t but I think that it represents the exact middle time of the development of the Process of the TOE, this Process I call is from the publication of the basis, all the way until the conclusions, and it is around 30 years of time that will be full of publications of papers and papers, and books, with new and new discoverments, that will go prooving and prooving the TOE, the basis that will soon be find, will be the basis of all these articles, and these articles will show the magnitude of the basis, and will push it more and more into society. The people who vote to this year will be those who defend a present big theory, like string theory, but that are moderated.

Around 2050 is when I think that the Conclusions of the TOE will be made. The basis will have entered in society completely, it will be accepted by the several proofs during 30 years. The conclusions will be what the Basis represent, mean, why they are them, and will get all the different Process articles and put them together, giving rules and general laws.

A bit more than a third of the TOEPs beleive that the TOE will be achieved in 100 years time. I can say who are those. These are the people that belief/know that the present theories are wrong. They belief that the human race is prepeared to acheive the TOE, and will do so, but they think it will take a whole century, because it will be full and full of things and parts, and will have many and many equations, and will be complicated, and iwll requier hundreds of great physicists during 100 years that will go addding and adding. These people are also those who want to be very moderate about the idea of TOE, and don't want to get too exited.

It is very surprising to me that 8% of the people, half of the ones that voted to 100, voted that the TOE will be solved in 500 years. These are those who think that the human race is not prepeared to develop the TOE yet. They believe that when human race achieves the TOE, it will be the end of technology, and the human race will self-distruct. They are also very very moderate about the TOE, and think it will be so complex that it will make people suicide and all do all kind of things.

Out of the two groups of TOENs (Theory Of Everything Negativists)-those who think humans are not enough and those who think that there is no TOE-I think there are more that belief that 2/3 believe there is no TOE and 1/3 belief that humans are not enough. These are probably more sort of amateur philosophers, than proper physicists, sometimes well based in theyr arguments, sometimes not. But, if the human mind is capable of creating a problem, it is capable of answering. WhY? Because the human mind itself determines what is the answer, and thus, if we give an answer, we will accept it.

Last but not least, I decided to calculate the avarage year that appears between all of those who have voted excluding the extremes (I excluded the votes for already been solved and for will never be solved) but I'm not sure if the method I used is correct, le tme know somone, please: I multiplied the years by the number of people that voted in favor of it, then sum up all these multiplications, and the devided it by the number of voters in total between the cases used. Example: 5 years 17 votes. 5*17=85. and then 10 years*15 votes=150. and then I added 85+150+......(nº years*nºvoters)....and I got 13,685. I devided this number by the number of voters between the years used, and I got: 13685/(17+15+30+18+37)=116.965812 years of avarage is what the voters of this poll (excluding never be solved and already been solved) think will be solved the TOE.

Now, I have expressed an Idea I have developed, all through this post: The TOE has three parts: Basis, Process, Conclusion. What do you think about it?
What other data would you like me to give (I like working with numbers)?

[GRAINBRAIN]

Man can never get to find the theory of everything , cause this is the only thing that seperates a man from being god. In this comic play god will never lose his upper hand.

[DanielCopper]

The Theory of Everything should, as the name says, cover every possible study.

[Guille]

Originally Posted by DanielCopper

The Theory of Everything should, as the name says, cover every possible study.

Yes. But you should use your head a bit more, and see the failures of trying to say that the theory of everything should cover everything. Words don't always mean what they represent, for if so, they wouldn't exopress the thoughts correctly to the world.....

To understand, I recoment you to visit my thread "The TOE Paradox"

http://www.toequest.com/forum/showth...p?t=382&page=1

[DanielCopper]

I'd like to further the question, which might be provoking:
What should a TOE be any good for? I mean, it's just a theory, and theories don't necessarily need to be of instant practical use for anyone. A Theory is a method to explain or predict things which happen in reality.
For instance, the String Theory was, amongst others, an attempt to unify the four great forces: the strong/weak nuclear force and the electromagnetic force with the gravitational force (hope i'm not too wrong here!). Did it succeed? Maybe, but i doubt many people have found practical use of it yet (at least, the scientists had some new insights to report to the public).

Knowing the TOE, wouldn't mean we become gods (not that anybody says this). We'd first have to find a way to handle it. What if we had the TOE, and it is so complicated that only a handful of scienists in the world understand it - but at the same time they are too much of Theoreticians, unable to explain it's practical use to the mankind.
What i am trying to say is, if the TOE exists, it ought to be simple, like:
e = m * c^2. ...maybe not THAT simple.
Here is my suggestion: c = sqrt(e / m).
Ok, thats only a stupid joke to relax things a bit.

[Guille]

Daniel, don't be afraid of posting what you think, I do so, and many others, and many disagree with me, but I don't care, and if I care, I do as if I don't.

Originally Posted by DanielCopper

I'd like to further the question, which might be provoking:
What should a TOE be any good for? I mean, it's just a theory, and theories don't necessarily need to be of instant practical use for anyone. A Theory is a method to explain or predict things which happen in reality.
For instance, the String Theory was, amongst others, an attempt to unify the four great forces: the strong/weak nuclear force and the electromagnetic force with the gravitational force (hope i'm not too wrong here!). Did it succeed? Maybe, but i doubt many people have found practical use of it yet (at least, the scientists had some new insights to report to the public).

OK, first, theories are very very usefull for humanity, actually they are the basis for everything that has to do with humanity.

Carl Sagan said "Maxwell's equations have had a greater impact on human history than any other ten presidents".

Everything to do with technology, is actually the practical use of science, and it is all completely, totally and absolutelly based on theories. Do you like cars? Well, hay! car developments are all based in theories: aerodinamics, the engine.....Anything else enters, for technology covers now all aspects of society.

Now, string theory is not finished. Many scientists still work in it. We just generally accepted it to be wrong and/or unvalid between us (the toequest members). And, as it is unfinished, it can't help for practicall use.

Originally Posted by DanielCopper

Knowing the TOE, wouldn't mean we become gods (not that anybody says this). We'd first have to find a way to handle it. What if we had the TOE, and it is so complicated that only a handfull of scienists in the world understand it - but at the same time they are too much of Theoreticians, unable to explain it's practical use to the mankind.
What i am trying to say is, if the TOE exits, it ought to be simple, like:
e = m * c^2. ...maybe not THAT simple.
Here is my suggestion: c = sqrt(e / m).
Ok, thats only a stupid joke to relax things a bit.

I am relaxed, I just like to reply when I have a comment.

And I also think that the TOE should be simple. I think actually most of us agree this here. And as simple as e=mc^2, well, yes, why not?

[zoobiscientist]

Yes you are correct that TOE might be so tough that only handful of scientist would understand.



Now try to understand my point:



Our ancestors were apes, some of them might have used their brain to solve general life problems, like cracking nuts and picking out insects from under the soil with the help of simple tools. Others might have not bothered them as for others, it was a tough job. But today we decedents know that their little brain usage generated HOMO SAPIENS who understand how useful tools are. On the other hand, the decedents of those who dint bother the tool usage are monkeys and chimps. I hope you understand my point.

[AntonioLao]

Originally Posted by GUILLE

Now, I have expressed an Idea I have developed, all through this post: The TOE has three parts: Basis, Process, Conclusion. What do you think about it?

One of the bases for a TOE would be the extension of a human life expectancy in addition to the comforts that should have then occur during living out each life. Can a TOE extends the average lifespan for an additional 200 years? This would be a good start. If the TOE can do this then it will be just as easy to extend the life for another few thousand years or even much longer.