39-year-old Garrett Lisi, who holds a doctorate from UC San Diego, divides his time between surfing in Hawaii and snowboarding in Tahoe. Oh, and figuring out a unified theory of the universe. From the Telegraph:

The new theory reported today in New Scientist has been laid out in an online paper entitled “An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything”…

He has high hopes that his new theory could provide what he says is a “radical new explanation” for the three decade old Standard Model, which weaves together three of the four fundamental forces of nature: the electromagnetic force; the strong force, which binds quarks together in atomic nuclei; and the weak force, which controls radioactive decay.

The coup in Lisi’s theory is that it also takes gravity into account. The only other model that has managed to do this is the as-yet-unproved string theory.

Lisi’s response when asked how he felt when he figured this whole thing out?
“My brain exploded with the implications and the beauty of the thing,” he tells New Scientist. “I thought: ‘Holy crap, that’s it!’”