An interesting story in the Ottawa Citizen this morning describes the theory of Garrett Lisi who has a PhD in physics from the University of California, San Diego. He has proposed "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything" that is intended to act as the Grand Unifying Theory of physics It is based on a complex, eight-dimensional mathematical pattern called E8.
I'm affectionately calling it the Mother of All Patterns.
Within this larger 'mother' pattern, I think we will quite likely find sub-structures or smaller patterns -- classic data patterns. I also think that if this model is sound, it may also act as a pattern for how we organize and store data, both in our minds and externally.
I'd like to see someone write a search algorithm for E8. Perhaps this already exists. Perhaps this is Google's 'secret algorithm'.
