future (or have we?) but I discuss a possible explanation for this.
I also describe the progress that has been made recently in finding “dualities” or correspondences between
apparently different theories of physics. These correspondences are a strong indication that there is a complete
unified theory of physics, but they also suggest that it may not be possible to express this theory in a single
fundamental formulation. Instead, we may have to use different reflections of the underlying theory in different
situations. It might be like our being unable to represent the surface of the earth on a single map and having to
use different maps in different regions. This would be a revolution in our view of the unification of the laws of
science but it would not change the most important point: that the universe is governed by a set of rational laws that we can discover and understand.