[ WP ] You have just finished perfecting the Theory of Everything ... It was surprisingly easy , actually ... Why is it not everywhere yet ? , you ask yourself ... Then you find out why ... .

`` And so this is equal... Zero. Wait...'' I lifted my eyes and gazed upon the wall of calculations I scribbled all over the board, allowing my eyes to relax from their focus for the first time in hours. I started out with Higgs' equation, and went down the path that Hawkins charted in his last research. I remembered how it seemed ridiculously convoluted at first, but slowly I was able to replace the variables in the matrix with constants, and lower the number of dimensions required for this to work down to the known four. My eyes followed the trail of numbers and letters down to the perfect, circular zero at the bottom of the board. 
 `` Holy crap!'' I exlaimed. My voice sounded unnaturally loud after spending hours mumbling to myself in the empty room. I did it! I fucking did it! I DID it! Not Hawkins, not old Patterstein up in Lab 4, not any of the scientists toiling away at CERN. Me. 23-year-old Samantha Garvey from Eddiville, TX. A part of my mind wondered if I can publish this fast enough to beat Bragg for the youngest person to win the Nobel Prize in Physics. If I had started 7 years ago I might have beaten Malala... 
 
 I shook myself out of it. This was not a time for vanity. Before me stood the Holy Grail of physics. I have just finished the calculations for a stable model for the Theory of Everything. I spent the next hour or so checking my math, even though I knew, deep in the recesses of my being that it's all correct. I checked it twice more, and transcribed it from the board to my notes, then I wiped the board clean. Last thing I need is some Will Hunting-like savant janitor seeing this and stealing my thunder. 
 
 The Theory of Everything... I just found it. A few hours playing with some equations, and it just came to me. I looked at my notes once more. Could it truly have been this easy? I'm pretty sure that every physicist had a go at it at one point or another. I'm smart, but I'm just in my post-doc. There have been geniuses tackling this thing for years, and they did n't figure it out. And the math was n't even that difficult. I had to do tougher calculations for my Master's thesis. How come nobody solved this by now? 
 
 I looked at my notes again. The equation gleams. It's beautiful. It's right. It's the greatest discovery of the age. Heck, any age. With this, the connection between energy and matter is laid bare. Gravity could be made to bend to our will. Cold fusion, flying cars, faster-than-light space travel, it's all possible now. I need to get this out of here. Get this published. Humanity is on the verge of getting answers to all its problems and I have the key. 
 
 I turn to the door, and then it happened. I ca n't take another step. There's nothing physically hindering me, but I am suddenly just AWARE. Each movements requires trillions of atoms in my body to shift position, and I could feel each and every one of them. I could feel their quarks, exchanging gluons and alternating forms, their electrons buzzing through, surging though the lump of matter that I used to think of as my body. I could sense a host of yet-undiscovered particles permeating through the universe. The blasts of neutrinos speeding between the gaps. 
 
 I've always known about all of those, of course. No physicist would n't. But something about the equation I've made changed things. My mind somehow upgraded itself by the sheer fact that the knowledge was inside it. I was suddenly acutely conscious of the fact that there was nothing truly holding the teeming pile of particles known as myself together. It's all just a lie that our brain tells us. My body was no different from the air around it. It's all the same building blocks. And they could be used to build anything else. 
 
 I looked down at my notes, hoping that there might be a stabilizing factor found in my calculations. My focus was not a good idea. The notebook was no more cohesive than my poor body. I could see the ties of the molecules. Flimsy, too flimsy. My notebook began tearing itself apart. My beautiful equation disintegrated to confetti. 
 
 I wanted to shout out, call out for help, but opening mouth proved to be as hard as walking. Muscles refused to see themselves as part of my body. I realized I have n't taken a breath in a while. It was no use. Stupid air molecules just atomized when getting near me, then quarktized, then turned into motes of pure energy. I followed them in my mind. I could see it all, all the little connections that form everything. The planet seemed small in this web. Heck, the galaxy was just a tiny piece of a much larger puzzle. I could see the whole thing. The universe, the big Everything that was out there. I could see the whole damn sparkling mass. I WAS the whole damn spakling mass. Samantha Garvey from Eddiville, TX. is just an illusion, each and every mind spends its life telling itself that it is its own separate entity, but my equation proved it's not true. 
 
 And then the universe, too, became small. Just a spec in a sea of true darkness. And then, just the darkness. 
 
 **************************************** 
 
 I was woken up by a member of the university's cleaning staff, who seemed oddly stoic about finding a passed-out scientist laying on the floor. He mumbled something about `` dem crazy white-robes not sleeping in their own beds.'' He pointed to the pile of paper pieces spread all over the floor around me and asked with some annoyance `` yous gon na clean that?'' All I could do was nod. What the hell happened last night? 
 
 Cleaning Guy left me for my devices. I started gathering the tiny scraps from the floor. I could tell it was the remains of my notebook. I must have been really frustrated with my lack of success last night to tear it up like that. I've done some real thorough job, too. I could n't figure out how any of it comes together. `` Great job Sam,'' I told myself, `` you've spent the entire night, and all you've to show for it is trash.'' 
 
 I finished cleaning and went out, locking the lab door behind me. I kept berating myself on the way to the car. `` And who passes out these days? what happened to the Sam who could pull an all-nighter without even a red-bull? Cleaning Guy must have snuck a peak up your skirt while you slept it off, too.'' 
 
 I got to my house and fell on my bed. God, I was tired. The last thought before sweet unconsciousness took me was: `` Really, Sam, what made you think you can find the Theory of Everything?'' 
 

