onepoorguy: Maybe gravity is NOT united with the other three forces, and so we're chasing something that isn't so.

That's my thought as well, though LIGO's recent detection of 'gravitational waves' is interesting.

space.com - Gravitational wave background universe 1st detection

From the article: signals of gravitational waves that make up that background have been hard to detect due to being faint, in addition to vibrating at decade-long timescales.

Those detections lie within the macroscopic realm described by General Relativity. It's interesting that decades-long wavelengths are likely emanated by an infant universe, and would seem to confirm universal expansion of whatever's perceived.

By way of explanation, wavelength is a function of light-speed, reflecting distance traveled over time, as in miles per hour. Light travels at about 300 kilometers/second; fast enough that nearby interactions feel instantaneous, while those most distant are thought to have occurred as long ago as 13.7 billion contemporary orbits of our mother planet about its parent star.

Observations suggest that space exponentially expands over time. My guess is that accommodates the exploding complexity of organically evolving experience exemplified in you, me and all perceived, as reflected in an ever-expanding spatial-temporal macrosphere.

More fundamentally, ephemeral quarks comprise the indefinitely persisting protons, neutrons and electrons that compose our perceptual universe. Quark existence is so brief that it's macroscopically undetectable.

I'd suggest that atemporally emergent quarks are the interface between the infinite potential of erstwhile nothingness and finite realization.

Organically evolving perception is informed by photons traveling at light-speed, conveying an impression of a macroscopic environment.

Enough already.

Tom