The "exceptionally simple theory of everything," proposed by a surfing physicist¹ in 2007, does not hold water, says Emory University mathematician² Skip Garibaldi. Garibaldi did the math to disprove（反驳） the theory, which involves a mysterious structure known as E8. The resulting paper (http://arxiv.org/abs/0905.2658 ), co-authored by physicist Jacques Distler of the University of Texas, will appear in an upcoming（即将来临的） issue of Communications in Mathematical Physics.

"The beautiful thing about math and physics is that it is not subjective," says Garibaldi. "I wanted a peer-reviewed（同行评议；同行审阅） paper published, so that the scientific literature provides an accurate state of affairs, to help clear up confusion among the lay（外行的，世俗的） public on this topic."

In November of 2007, physicist Garrett Lisi published an online paper entitled "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything." Lisi spent much of his time surfing in Hawaii, adding a bit of color to the story surrounding the theory. Although his paper was not peer-reviewed, and Lisi himself commented that his theory was still in development, the idea was widely reported in the media, under attention-grabbing headlines like "Surfer dude stuns³（使晕倒，使惊吓） physicists⁴ with theory of everything."

Garibaldi was among the skeptics（怀疑主义者）  when the theory hit the news. So was Distler, a particle physicist, who wrote about problems he saw with Lisi's idea on his blog. Distler's posting inspired Garibaldi to think about the issue more, eventually leading to their collaboration⁵（合作，通敌） .

Lisi's paper centered on the elegant mathematical structure known as E8, which also appears in string theory（弦理论） . First identified in 1887, E8 has 248 dimensions and cannot be seen, or even drawn⁶, in its complete form.

The enigmatic（高深莫测的，神秘的） E8 is the largest and most complicated of the five exceptional Lie groups, and contains four subgroups that are related to the four fundamental forces of nature: the electromagnetic force（电磁力） ; the strong force (which binds⁷ quarks); the weak force (which controls radioactive decay); and the gravitational force（地心引力，重力） .

In a nutshell（总而言之，根本上说） , Lisi proposed that E8 is the unifying⁸ force for all the forces of the universe.

"That would be great if it were true, because I love E8," Garibaldi says. "But the problem is, it doesn't work as he described it in his paper."

As a leading expert on several of the exceptional Lie groups, Garibaldi felt an obligation to help set the record straight（澄清问题，弄清真相） . "A lot of mystery surrounds the Lie groups, but the facts about them should not be distorted," he says. "These are natural objects that are central to mathematics, so it's important to have a correct understanding of them."

Using linear algebra⁹（线性代数） and proving theorems（定理，原理） to translate the physics into math, Garibaldi and Distler not only showed that the formulas proposed in Lisi's paper do not work, they also demonstrated the flaws（缺陷，裂缝） in a whole class of related theories.

"You can think of E8 as a room, and the four subgroups related to the four fundamental forces of nature as furniture, let's say chairs," Garibaldi explains. "It's pretty easy to see that the room is big enough that you can put all four of the chairs inside it. The problem with 'the theory of everything' is that the way it arranges the chairs in the room makes them non-functional."

He gives the example of one chair inverted¹⁰（反向，颠倒） and stacked（堆放） atop another chair.

"I'm tired of answering questions about the 'theory of everything,'" Garibaldi says. "I'm glad that I will now be able to point to a peer-reviewed scientific article that clearly rebuts¹¹（反驳，揭露） this theory. I feel that there are so many great stories in science, there's no reason to puff¹² up（肿胀 ，膨大） something that doesn't work."