c) GUT??? BINGO!! Read On.....

"God does not play dice"...
Einstein's simple yet firm belief sparked the hottest debates in the
history of physics-The Einstein-Bohr debates... Bohr was a strong
advocate of quantum physics, in fact he is considered by many as the
founder of the field. In fact, I guess that Einstein's space-time warp
concept-his 'fourth dimension theory'-is largely related to quantum
physics. Today, quantum physics is the most interesting and highly
researched part of modern physics. In fact, layman considers modern
physics and quantum physics essentially the same... Of course wrong
because modern physics has got a cosmological touch too.. The era was
started by Einstein's path breaking papers on photoelectric effect,
special and general theory of relativity and Brownian motion and ended
with the beginning of the search of the universe's smallest and the
universe's largest.

And then came (and still goes
on) the era of particle physics. It was sparked by some serious
questions. How did the universe start? Can we create universe(s)? This
is the Cosmo feel of quantum physics. What is the smallest and the
largest dimension matter can reach? Is there anything that crosses
Planck's length, Planck's time , Planck's mass. This era has (and will)
witnessed the most beautiful engineering wonders ever. The most famous
is of course the LHC of CERN on the Franco-Swiss border. The lesser
known like the Super-Kamiokande Solar Neutrino Detector and the Tokamak
are no less important or wonderful. To witness a couple of proton-proton
collisions per day, the SKSND was built with 32,000 tonnes of filtered
water and 11,200 photomultiplier tubes.

Scientists believe
that there is one theory-Grand Unified Theory that can explain
everything and every occurrence in the whole existing (and continually
expanding) universe. One Master Equation that could explain everything
from the effect of dark matter on the motion of planets and stars to why
a paramecium mates the way it does. Every big name in physics was busy
in finding this equation. At this time, a virtually unknown German
mathematician named Theodore Kaluza was wondering about the works of
Albert Einstein. He thought that using one extra dimension (time),
Einstein defined gravity in warps of space-time; maybe he can describe
the only other known force at that time-the electromagnetic force in the
same type of warps...but here was the catch. warps of what? So he
thought that maybe he needed one more dimension. He started his
calculations with four dimensions and arrived at one equation which
was--- the same electromagnetic equation(s) known to scientists. So he
thought that this is the master equation. But obviously it wasn't so.
Now two more forces are known-the strong force and the weak force. By
the way did you notice the symmetry??
Anyways, the research (or the
search , if you will) for GUT is still on. Although it has not been
found yet(as far as I know), but many other fascinating discoveries and
inventions have been made in the way.

So, what is the current
status update of the physics world? Well, it seems that CERN has yet
again achieved a milestone in the 'net'working area. In their own words,
the Grid uses the Internet but is not the Internet. Moreover CERN
Director-General Dr. Rolf-Dieter Heuer is aware of the competition from
other particle research laboratories especially SLAC (Stanford Linear
Accelerator Center). Higher and Higher Energy Levels are being reached by LHC and yet more is still to come, with a couple of years extension recently given. Many petabytes of knowledge are being gained all
over the world on a daily basis and yet the road to unification is still
being walked upon...