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Ithaca, NY - Physicists at Cornel-Putnam University (CPU) confirmed
yesterday the Holy Grail of Physics, the Grand Unified Theory, is contained
in
the
Half-Life 2 source code. For decades Einstein attempted to weave together
all aspects of physics into one grand unified theory, and although he
failed many physicists have continued his work, seemingly in vain.
 The
Half-Life 2 source code leaked onto the Internet by an unknown hacker
last month after he or she compromised one of the computers it was
stored on. This allowed physicists at CPU to analyze the revolutionary
physics engine.
Dr. Harvey McLeod said in his statement early yesterday, "I
overheard one of my students talking in class, about how he was playing
the Half-Life 2 beta and how exact the physics engine was. I became
intrigued. I didn't think that a computer had the processing power
to compute all the different physics equations quickly enough to
animate the game flawlessly. I was right, they were just computing
one equation."
Game Engine Software Engineer at Valve, Jose Garcia discovered the
theory. "The game engine ran too slowly. I was assigned the
job of speeding it up," he said. "I started out by combining
some of the gravity equations with some of the other force equations
and found it all started to fit together. After a day, I had fine-tuned
the entire physics-animation functions down to four lines of code,
which ran a bit faster," he added.
Game Engine Development Manager at Valve, David Price released a
press briefing later in the day accusing Dr. McLeod of "theft
of intellectual property" and "releasing of a trade secret".
He went on to state the internal workings of the Half-Life 2 physics
engine were the sole property of Valve. Any equations it contained,
and anybody creating derivative works or publishing the equation
in any way would be sued.
Clayton Wilkins, a lawyer for Dr. McLeod, argued the equation cannot
be intellectual property because it "describes physics itself,
which has existed for 14 billion years from the time of The Big Bang
to the present. Dr. McLeod's right to free press governs his publishing
of the equation under fair use laws."
Lawyers for Valve responded to the arguments by filing a lawsuit against Dr.
McLeod and asking a judge for an injunction against his publishing of the equation.
Dr. McLeod was stunned by the news. "Where would physics be
today if other fundamental equations were copyrighted? E=MC^2 Copyright
Albert Einstein, 1917! What of physics? Every theory is built on
other theories and if we are legally bound against using the grand
unified theory our entire field is in a stalemate. It's not like
we can just find another 'one equation, which describes all of physics'
there is only one! There can be only one!"
Valve deferred all further questions to their legal department.
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