Physicist and science communicator, Michio Kaku, claims the ‘God Equation’ is within reach after scientists discover discrepancies in the Standard Theory of physics, hinting at new forces or particles.

The idea of a ‘Universal Theory’ of everything is something scientists have been seeking for generations, according to Dr Kaku, who said he was inspired to search for the equation by Albert Einstein.

I interviewed Dr Kaku for MailOnline about his new book The God Equation: The Quest for a Theory of Everything just as Fermilab announced an unexpected ‘wobble’ in the orientation of muons.

You can read a write-up of the interview, and his take on the Standard Model discrepancies in the MailOnline article: Are we close to finding a theory of everything? Leading physicist claims recent changes spotted in the standard model of physics point to a ‘God Equation’.

In his book, Dr Kaku says there is a single, inch long equation that will unite all the forces of nature, a ‘God Equation’ that will be beautiful, simple and elegant to explain the universe.

What if Douglas Adams is right and the answer to the greatest question, the question of life, the universe and everything, the answer Deep Thought gave as 42 is actually the answer to the God Equation.

What if we find this great, simple and elegant equation and the calculation gives the answer 42. What if there are 42 strings to a neutron, 42 waves in a force, 42 something in a something else.

Obviously this is whimsy, but I am drawn to the concept of simplicity, the idea that the universe can be explained in such a beautifully elegant way – much like the concept of matter and energy being the same is explained by Einstein with an inch long equation – E=MC2.

As Dr Kaku said in my interview with him for MailOnline: ‘We already have the “theory of almost everything,” so many physicists have faith that there is a Final Theory from which all other theories can be derived.

‘The next goal is to unify the last two great theories, relativity with the quantum theory, to create a true theory of everything. That would be the crowning achievement of 2,000 years of our investigation into this universe of ours.’

Lead Photo: Cristiano Sant´Anna/indicefoto.com for campuspartybrasil, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons