Communing with nature has its benefits

Garrett Lisi, a surfer from Hawaii, may have drawn up a new theory of the universe that elegantly answers what may be the "holy grail of physics." The theory is relatively simple in that "does not require more than one dimension of time and three of space."

Lee Smolin at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, describes Lisi's work as "fabulous". "It is one of the most compelling unification models I've seen in many, many years," he says.

The model uses an intricate shape in mathematics known as E8 (shown above in 2D format). Explaining what E8 is would take a bigger brain than I've got. So I'm not going to try explain it.

You can read the Telegraph's article here.