There has been a lot of time and attention and, I presume, money on a Unified Theory. I don't think the scientific community is a lot closer to that goal, nor is it further from agreeing that it is something that will come about. The above paper may be riddled with errors and ridiculous in its clumsiness, but has it put anyone off of their belief a unified theory is possible? I dare say even Sabine's belief in a unifying theory hasn't waned in the face of this or other failed attempts to come up with one. It isn't like we should put a time limit on discovery or even a budget cap. It's just hard for supporters to justify the expense when the outcome is uncertain and in a possibly distant future.
How does an investor know, before the money is spent, that answers won't be found?
What is a waste of money anyhow? Money is like energy, it doesn't just disappear. Someone receives that money and recircuates it. There is a loss to other possible beneficiaries, perhapse, but the economy is still stimulated by the expenditure. And that money is still being passed around.
Maybe that money even flows towards a kind of entropy. The more money flows out of the pockets of the wealthy: people, corporations, governments, churches, the wider it gets distributed and the closer it moves towards leveling the economic field. Eventually, as everyone begins to have the same as everyone else, less work gets done. Just as much money, but no organization to do work with it (entropy). The balance of bank accounts means no big projects to invest in. We have to, therefore, pump money back uphill, not necessarily the same hill, to regain money's potential energy. That way, the reservoir of money at the top of that hill can spend it downward, on another wild speculation.
Sorry, I was just thinking random thoughts out loud as I wrote. This is a good analogy. Money vs mater/energy has potential energy, kinetic energy, and entropy. n-dollars flow in over over time t, and n-dollars will flow out over t. Time may become compressed or stretched out at either end of the flow, depending upon the savings or credit spending habits of the particular pipeline, but over all, it will equal out. What goes in, comes out.
Don't mind me. I do think the analogy works, though.
-Will
