This is the most exciting physics article I’ve read all year!

“Physicists have discovered a jewel-like geometric object that dramatically simplifies calculations of particle interactions and challenges the notion that space and time are fundamental components of reality.”

It’s called the amplituhedron.

Why is it so exciting?

“The revelation that particle interactions, the most basic events in nature, may be consequences of geometry significantly advances a decades-long effort to reformulate quantum field theory, the body of laws describing elementary particles and their interactions. Interactions that were previously calculated with mathematical formulas thousands of terms long can now be described by computing the volume of the corresponding jewel-like “amplituhedron,” which yields an equivalent one-term expression.”

The suggestion is that space and time – until now considered the very fundamentals of the universe  – may be illusory and, instead, a property of the amplituhedron.

Bucky Fuller and Plato both always thought the universe would one day be explained by the properties of geometry. Looks like they might have been right!