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3 answers

There are two possibilities.

The first is that one of the theories can be extended to encompass the other. This is the line most people currently pursue, pciking quantum mechanics as their starting point. String theory falls into this category but is messy (there are 10^500 flavours of string theory!!!!)

The second is that both theories will turn out to be special cases of a broader theory. Few if any people are woking in this way, yet this is precisely what happened when both relativity and quantum mechanics were developed (both reduce to classical mechanics in the limit of low speed and [E,t] = 0).

2007-03-07 19:20:49 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

Although both quantum mechanics and general relativity work very well on their own (and with applicable results, like computing and GPS systems), they don't predict the same results for systems outside of their range (very large or small systems, respectively). Which is what the Theory of Everything in physics would hopefully do - unite all the fields so that you can move seemlessly from one to the other.

2007-03-07 21:20:41 · answer #2 · answered by eri 7 · 0 0

The Grand Unified Field Theory is a theory that would unite both Quantum physics (subatomic scale) to Einstein (Newtonian) physics. Scientists are still looking for the "missing link". Currently, as stated above, both theories are consistent in their own realm. When scientists are able to reconcile both scales of physics, it is hoped that that would result in the Grand Unified Theory. However, there could be other undiscovered issues that would even leave the GUFT still short on answering "everything".

2007-03-07 21:30:35 · answer #3 · answered by Scarp 3 · 0 0

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