Why do we need a theory of everything?

Question

Why can't people just accept that quantum physics and general relativity are two fundamentally different fields and things at really massive scales behave very differently than things at very tiny scales?

So what if gravity and electromagnetism don't behave the same way? They're two different forces of course they act differently!

It just seems like more of an exercise in futility and a preoccupation than it is an attempt to explain some observed phenomena like a typical theory would be.

Answer 1

At first I thought this question was going to be some stupid physics student who couldn't memorize his things. But this is decent. And my opinion? We humans need to rationalize everything to at least make it seem that we are in control. Anything we can't control is wild and dangerous. Why did we have gods that controlled weather? Because it assuaged our fears.

But that's just my opinion.

Answer 2

The theory is not trying to unite gravity and electromagnetism in the way you may think, it's a theory of trying to pin down how gravity behaves at the smallest scales.  The effect will be to unite gravity and electromagnetism, but that's not the be-all-and-end-all of things, what science has tried to do is to explain why something we know great deals of will not fit into our usual pigeonholes, and the fact we haven't been able to do it yet is reason enough to continue the quest!

What if people were still looking up at birds thinking "If only we could travel through the air as they do"?

You've missed the point completely - there is a universe full of things, most of which we have very good ideas of how they work from two phenomenal achievements of the human mind, why should we NOT try to unite the two?  They are fundamental to everything, yet still there are mysteries there.  If we give up exploration, science itself dies.

(By the way - How do YOU know that gravity and electromagnetism are different forces?  They said that about electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force....et cetera)