Scientists propose “DNA of the universe” is gap in Einstein’s hunt for unified physics theory

When molecular biologist Francis Crick tripped on the psychedelic drug LSD in 1953, his mind famously pulled together all of his previous research on human DNA to conceive of the image of a double helix. More than seven decades later, mathematician Robert Monjo believes he has discovered a similarly significant double helix — but this time not as the structure of human DNA, but as the structure of spacetime itself.

“Our study completes the work of Albert Einstein in his attempt to relate gravity and electromagnetism forces in the same geometric theory,” Monjo, a professor of mathematics at Saint Louis University in Spain, told Salon. While it may seem like an odd coincidence for spacetime to follow an analogous engineering blueprint as the human body, Monjo argues this is perfectly logical.

“The actual connection between physics and molecular biology is that curvature and torsion are the most probable solutions (minimum energy when forces are acting) for particle paths and for designing stable structures,” Monjo said. “The simile with the DNA is more a metaphor but in some way, there exists the connection as mentioned for solving paths.”

Working with Dr. Rutwig Campoamor-Stursberg and mathematics colleague Álvaro Rodríguez Abella, Monjo performed extensive algebraic and other mathematical calculations — much of it drawing from existing research on theoretical physics — in order to arrive at their conclusions. Their study was published in the journal General Relativity and Gravitation in October.

Monjo’s theory helps unify scientific concepts of Newtonian gravity with our knowledge of electromagnetism. Einstein was convinced that such a unified theory exists, and during his own lifetime demonstrated that his theory of relativity applies to Newtonian mechanics as well as other important concepts involving electromagnetism, optics, electric and magnetic circuits.

“That was already a first unification of the transformations of mechanics, since until then physics were considered two different worlds,” Monjo explained, contrasting physicist Isaac Newton’s concepts of physics with those advanced by a similarly foundational physicist, James Clerk Maxwell. “Einstein then generalized his idea to the relativity of the gravitational force (General Relativity, in 1915-1916) and worked more than a decade to improve it, but he was unable to finish the work for the electromagnetic force. Our work addresses precisely that point: we can perform transformations of motion so that gravity and electromagnetism can be deduced from the same equation of spacetime.”

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Dr. Djordje Minic, a professor of physics and particle and string theory at the University of Texas at Austin, isn’t so sure about these conclusions. He noted that teleparallel gravity — the conceptual unified theory imagined by Einstein — has “various problems,” starting with local Lorentz symmetry, or the theory that in physics the laws are the same for all observers moving relative to each other.

“Saying that matter interactions all come from the metric of classical spacetime means, at least naïvely, that quantum spacetime — whatever that means empirically — does not really have any role, or that the foundational questions in quantum theory are simply irrelevant in quantum theory of gravity and matter,” Minic said. Matter is quantum as we know, and if matter comes from the spacetime metric then, what happens to the observed distinction between quantum and classical correlations - for example quantum probabilities interfere, classical do not.”

“Now, the authors say that spacetime coordinates are matrices, but what does that mean for the experimentally tested Standard Model whose quantum fields live in classical spacetime?” Minic went on. “What is the consequence of this approach for the observed vacuum energy (cosmological constant) and the observed masses of elementary particles?” The term “vacuum energy” refers to the energy background that permeates the entire universe, within or outside of a vacuum. A cosmological constant is a famous part of Einstein's General Relativity theory, and refers to an arbitrary constant that is present in all related field equations. Finally elementary particles are protons, electrons, neutrons and all other particles that are smaller than an atom.

While the authors argue that spacetime coordinates are matrices, Minic said “I do not see any deep consequences of that statement! What happens to quantum correlations in that matrix valued spacetime? Do they satisfy the quantum Bell bound? How is the quantum probability computed? Is the Born rule still valid? Are there any new testable predictions?”

The Bell theorem refers to how entangled electrons are predicted by quantum mechanics, making them non-local — often referred to as “spooky action at a distance.” The Born rule bridges the math of quantum theory to the outcomes of experiments, which makes the field a legitimate scientific discipline in the first place. It seems this new theory of the universe still has a lot to explain. Minic instead argued that the quantum theory behind Einstein's gravity and standard model for matter is gravitized quantum theory.

“In this approach the currently fixed geometry of quantum theory, tied to the Born rule for quantum probabilities, becomes dynamical, in analogy with dynamical spacetime metric of general relativity,” Minic said. “This ultimately connects to metastring theory, an intrinsically non-commutative and phase-space-like formulation of string theory.” Their approach attempts to illuminate a cosmological constant as well as the properties of leptons and quarks.

“There is a new prediction that has to do with intrinsic triple (and higher order) quantum interference and a dynamical Born rule that can be experimentally tested,” Minic said. “In general, we need experiments in quantum gravity, not just theories. With experiments, we will have real science, which is what we all want in our quest to understand the universe a bit better and a bit more completely.”

In contrast to Minic, Dr. Avi Loeb, a theoretical physics professor at Harvard University, praised the paper as “highly technical and offers a novel mathematical way to describe interactions among particles in a unified geometric way, including gravity and electromagnetism.” Adding that its results can be used to create a new unification scheme of quantum mechanics and gravity, Loeb said the deeper significance of the double helix structure isthat it “is simply a mathematical result that has nothing to do with biology. The fact that it appears here and in the human DNA is a remarkable coincidence.”