Tom:
A lot of people have considered multiple timelike dimensions -- it is a neat idea, but tends to run into problems by predicting tachyons.
bidou:
It lacks something.
David:
I'm more curious about his fanatical followers...
Kotatsu:
There are some theories that work without a Higgs, but they tend to be more complicated. It's a good bet that the Higgs will be seen in a few months at the LHC.
I'm afraid I don't have time to look at Lafreniere's stuff.
N. Tantilov:
I'm not sure that just because Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem can be posed and proved within the universe that it is a fundamental part of its structure. I'm convinced that the universe can be described by mathematics, but not that it is mathematics -- though it's an interesting idea. Also, good to know you enjoy humor -- it sees us through the dark times.
Sava:
The mathematics should translate easily enough.
Matt:
"Dr. Surfer Dude" maybe? I've been using Mathematica a lot ( > 20 years!), and sometimes Maple. GAP looks very cool, and I may end up using it. I think the Atlas website isn't particularly user friendly yet. Maybe all the attention will motivate some improvement, there and with my stuff too.
JKD:
Aren't we all condensed matter physicists? The base manifold is naked -- it's a four-manifold of arbitrary topology. It doesn't have a signature or metric -- these are part of the E8 fiber moving over it.
I like the path integral approach to quantization. But using canonical quantization in a flat spacetime approximation would be fine.
Ford:
What do you get when you multiply 4 by 2?
Guglielmo:
It should be accessible to some of the same tools as non-abelian quantum field theory. However, it's a lot messier since the spacetime frame is part of the fiber, and this spacetime can be curved. So the usual QFT methods probably won't give a fully consistent quantum E8 theory. I'm counting on using the methods being developed by the quantum gravity community to consistently quantize this theory.
Albert:
Being a linebacker isn't as much fun as it sounds... A twenty sided die lives in 3 dimensions, otherwise you'd never make your saving throws. The E8 Lie group is a 248 dimensional smooth surface -- there are 248 directions one could move in when on this surface. Each of these directions is a symmetry which can be plotted as a unique point in an abstract 8 dimensional space, giving the E8 polytope. (Does that make things clear?)
The four dimensional base spacetime, over which the E8 Lie group moves, must be assumed from the beginning. General relativity does come from considering how part of the E8 Lie group surface moves over our base spacetime. To get time, we have to assume a specific noncompact form of E8, and it's not clear why nature would make that choice.
Kris:
Yah, that's pretty close.
Ray:
Thanks. Coming up with good questions isn't a hinderance though -- it helps clarify this stuff for me and others.
Nelson:
Whoa, dude, cosmic... It is lunch time though, so I'm gonna make a small universal blt.