Does the Universe Still Need Einstein?

Dennis Overbye of the New York Times asks "Is Albert Einstein finally dead?" in an article that surveys the state of contemporary physics, highlighting a recent column by Institute Director and Leon Levy Professor Robbert Dijkgraaf for Quanta Magazine.

Overbye writes:

"More than anyone, it was Einstein who set the goal for modern science: the search for a final theory of everything, a 'unified theory,' he said, that would explain why there was no other way to put together the universe than the one we seem to live in.

Or, as he famously put it, 'What interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the world.'

Roll over, Albert.

'There are no laws of physics,' read the headline on an article in Quanta, the online science magazine, last summer by Robbert Dijkgraaf, the director of the Institute for Advanced Study, where Einstein spent his last 22 years.

Instead, Dr. Dijkgraaf wrote, there is a frighteningly complex 'landscape' of possibilities, a nearly infinite, subtly connected network of complementary versions of reality. There exists a universe for every good or bad dream you’ve ever had, each with its own set of so-called fundamental particles, forces, laws and dimensions."

Read more from Overbye at the New York Times, and find Dijkgraaf's Quanta article here.