J. A. Wheeler’s Prophetic Vision
John Archibald Wheeler (1911–2008) was an influential theoretical physicist who reignited interest in General Relativity, black holes and ideas like Geometrodynamics that linked the microcosm and macrocosm.
He was known for his ability to explain the central essence of complex physics theories in simple and succinct statements. One of the best of those was his elegant statement of General Relativity’s key idea: “Spacetime tells matter how to move; matter tells spacetime how to curve.”
It will come as no surprise that one of my favorite Wheeler (2000) quotations is:
“How can physics live up to its true greatness except by a new revolution in outlook which dwarfs all its past revolutions? And when it comes, will we not say to each other, ‘Oh, how beautiful and simple it all is! How could we ever have missed it for so long!”
Wheeler was well aware that experimental physics and astrophysical observations had been generating discoveries at a remarkable pace, but theoretical physics seemed to be spinning its wheels and not making real progress.
Wheeler envisioned a revolutionary new way of understanding nature which would reveal the underlying unity of the cosmos. It would involve principles that were surprisingly simple and, after their discovery, would seem like something that should have been obvious all along.
I share Wheeler’s vision, and below I have linked my candidate for that surprisingly obvious idea, which might potentially unify our stagnating and balkanized situation in theoretical physics.
The principles of this new paradigm are simple, are derived from copious observations of nature, have passed many retrodictive tests, and can generate many definitive predictions. All that this idea may require is for people to study it carefully and say: “How could we have missed it for so long!”