OK, this is gonna be a little weird.
There's a 38 year old named Garret Lisi who spends summers living in Hawaii for the surfing. For pocket money he works as a Hiking Guide and lives in a Jungle Yurt, but only as necessary. In the Winter he migrates to Lake Tahoe for the Snowboarding scene.
Despite being an impoverished gypsy of sorts, Mr. Lisi has another unique attribute. He has a PhD in Theoretical Physics, and recently published a paper that describes a new Theory for the "Standard Model", which for decades has been the epic quest in the Physics community. His paper is modestly titled "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything".
Finding a theory to explain the Standard Model is akin to developing a cure for Cancer. The Standard Model is comprised of the four physical forces which govern the Universe; Electromagnetic, Strong Atomic, Weak Atomic, and Gravitational. To date Physicists use some fashionably complex Mathematical formulae called String Theory to describe the Standard Model.
Quoting from the article in the Daily Telegraph:
Despite this unusual career path, his proposal is remarkable because, by the arcane standards of particle physics it does not require highly complex mathematics.
Even better, it does not require more than one dimension of time and three of space, when some rival theories need ten or even more spatial dimensions and other bizarre concepts. And it may even be possible to test his theory, which predicts a host of new particles, perhaps even using the new Large Hadron Collider atom smasher that will go into action near Geneva next year.
Although the work of 39 year old Garrett Lisi still has a way to go to convince the establishment, let alone match the achievements of Albert Einstein, the two do have one thing in common: Einstein also began his great adventure in theoretical physics while outside the mainstream scientific establishment, working as a patent officer, though failed to achieve the Holy Grail, an overarching explanation to unite all the particles and forces of the cosmos.
Quoting further:
"Some incredibly beautiful stuff falls out of Lisi's theory," adds David Ritz Finkelstein at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. "This must be more than coincidence and he really is touching on something profound."
...The reason for the excitement is that Lisi's model also takes account of gravity, a force that has only successfully been included by a rival and highly fashionable idea called string theory, one that proposes particles are made up of minute strings, which is highly complex and elegant but has lacked predictions by which to do experiments to see if it works.
To understand more about Lisi's model, all you need to understand is what's called an E8, which is an eight-dimensional pattern with 248 points. If written out in small print, it would cover the island of Manhattan.
You can find Lisi's paper in the New Scientist here(subscription required).
Who said all Surfers were slackers?