Theory of Everything

Theory of Everything is a personal academic blog template built on Jekyll using the Chirpy theme, designed to publish study notes and research documentation as a static site on GitHub Pages.

What is Theory of Everything?

Theory of Everything is the source repository for Huanyu Shi's academic blog, constructed with the Jekyll static site generator and the Chirpy theme. It takes Markdown posts as input and produces a static website deployable to GitHub Pages, with customizations tailored for physics and mathematics content. The project is open-source under the MIT License and combines the standard Chirpy features with author-specific modifications.

Key Features

• Jekyll + Chirpy foundation — Built on Jekyll and the Chirpy theme, providing a clean, responsive blog layout with light and dark mode support natively.
• MathJax physics package — The MathJax configuration is modified to load the physics package, enabling advanced LaTeX rendering for physics equations.
• Custom sidebar — A background image is added to the sidebar and text styles are adjusted; friend links can be displayed in the sidebar area.
• Latest posts on Further Reading — The Further Reading section can show the newest posts instead of related content; this change has been merged into Chirpy v6.5.5.
• Site statistics — Footer includes visit statistics powered by busuanzi (不蒜子).
• Background animation — The site includes a background animation inspired by @NichtsHsu's blog.
• GitHub contribution graph — Integrates gh-contrib-graph to display a GitHub contribution heatmap.
• Extended code prompts — Adds four new copy/expand prompts for code blocks beyond the default Chirpy options.
• Stylized details element — The HTML details element is restyled with custom open/close states.
• Python utilities — Provides Python implementations for Low Quality Image Placeholders (LQIP) and inverted images.

Who is it for?

• Physics and mathematics students — Use the template to publish study notes with proper equation rendering and organized categories.
• Academic researchers — Share research journey notes, links to PDF summaries, and figures created with TikZ.
• Jekyll developers — Learn from the customization examples, from MathJax tweaks to sidebar enhancements.

What can you do with Theory of Everything?

• Physics learners — Publish categorized study notes on quantum many-particle theory with LaTeX equations.
• Python enthusiasts — Maintain a section of Python study notes alongside the main blog content.
• Content sharers — Upload PDFs such as summaries of Zhihu answers, LaTeX lab report templates, and TikZ examples for readers to download.

FAQ

Is Theory of Everything free to use?

Yes, the repository is published under the MIT License, meaning you can freely use, modify, and distribute it, provided you include the original copyright notice.

Does this blog work with GitHub Pages?

Yes, as a Jekyll-based site, it is fully compatible with GitHub Pages. You can deploy it by pushing the repository to GitHub and enabling Pages, or by using GitHub Actions for custom builds.

What customization is documented?

The author maintains a Chinese-language blog post titled "Chirpy Blog Customization" that details the modifications made, including MathJax setup, sidebar background, friend links, statistics, and more.

Can I use this theme for a non-academic blog?

Yes, although the content is academic, the underlying Chirpy theme and customizations are generic enough for any personal blog. The physics-specific MathJax package can be removed if unnecessary.