6 ms·

> I wish they didn't use the word wormhole. Taking a hot physics buzz-phrase (wormhole, black hole, Hawking radiation, etc.) and applying it to a mathematicall

by gaur 10y ago

> I wish they didn't use the word wormhole. Taking a hot physics buzz-phrase (wormhole, black hole, Hawking radiation, etc.) and applying it to a mathematically analogous (but physically unrelated) system is currently fashionable in physics. Personally I find it kind of dishonest, but it seems to be a popular strategy for focusing attention on research that is otherwise only marginally interesting.

abdullahkhalids 10y ago
You stated the valid reason why physicists do this naming. The mathematics is analogous. This means that by studying the different system (eg. the wormhole in the lab), the physicists are probing the mathematical structure of the theory of the original system- except that studying the different system is easier than the original system. Actual wormhole physicists then might learn from this research to understand how wormholes might behave. Why this is a recent trend is because only in the past few decades have experiment technologies improved to the point where exotic systems can be physically simulated in the lab using simple systems. My own research is partly of this sort and so we have fancy names too, but I assure you that, at least in my group, no one cares one bit about our research being published in pop-sci magazines
- archgoon 10y ago
  It's not clear in this case that what they've built is mathematically analogous to GR wormholes. This seems more on the "it's kinda conceptually similar" rather than "this works exactly the same as a wormhole under the proper translation of variables" If they had such a correspondence, than I would definitely say this was an awesome accomplishment, but I do not believe that they do.
  - abdullahkhalids 10y ago
    Kindly read the last paragraph of my comment on your sibling.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- gaur 10y ago
  > This means that by studying the different system (eg. the wormhole in the lab), the physicists are probing the mathematical structure of the theory of the original system I just don't buy that argument, because it is essentially the same argument that was used to support the ether hypothesis. Both sound and light are governed by a wave equation. Since sound is observed to have a preferred frame (the rest frame of the medium), the above argument asserts that light should also have a preferred frame, since the mathematics is the same. But that line of reasoning is obviously wrong, as we know now. I don't think that observing some wormhole-like feature in a metamaterial provides any information about how wormholes may or may not behave in GR. The entire endeavor of analogue gravity seems specious to me.
  - abdullahkhalids 10y ago
    Science going wrong (ether) is not a bad thing. In fact, if scientists were not routinely wrong, we would suspect there was something wrong with our scientific method. Let me challenge your argument more directly. Postulating ether after observing that sound and light have similar properties (wave behaviour) is not stupid. It is the logical thing to do. It was also a hypothesis. Scientists did well-designed experiments and eventually realized that light does not a need a medium to travel. The scientific process correctly identified falsehood. Outcome: we are clear on which properties light and sound share (wave equation) and which they don't (medium or lack thereof) I haven't read the paper, but let me make a statement about metamaterial wormholes. Metamaterial experiments in the lab might be able to simulate a type of wormholes. If they can then we know that within another theory that shares enough math with EM will also have wormholes of that type. The question then is if GR has and EM share enough of that mathematical structure. If they do then these types of wormholes will also exist in GR. This is a different way of investigating GR wormholes then directly looking at the theory of GR. The differences between EM theory and GR might make it easier to discover wormholes in the former than in the latter. TLDR; Let scientists get creative.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - semi-extrinsic 10y ago
PhasmaFelis 10y ago
At least they didn't try to connect it to a marginally-related bit of pop culture. Remember when some Berkeley guys published a way to bend light around an object, and every goddamn headline included the words "Harry Potter invisibility cloak"?

by gaur 10y ago

abdullahkhalids 10y ago

You stated the valid reason why physicists do this naming. The mathematics is analogous. This means that by studying the different system (eg. the wormhole in the lab), the physicists are probing the mathematical structure of the theory of the original system- except that studying the different system is easier than the original system. Actual wormhole physicists then might learn from this research to understand how wormholes might behave. Why this is a recent trend is because only in the past few decades have experiment technologies improved to the point where exotic systems can be physically simulated in the lab using simple systems. My own research is partly of this sort and so we have fancy names too, but I assure you that, at least in my group, no one cares one bit about our research being published in pop-sci magazines

archgoon 10y ago
It's not clear in this case that what they've built is mathematically analogous to GR wormholes. This seems more on the "it's kinda conceptually similar" rather than "this works exactly the same as a wormhole under the proper translation of variables" If they had such a correspondence, than I would definitely say this was an awesome accomplishment, but I do not believe that they do.
- abdullahkhalids 10y ago
  Kindly read the last paragraph of my comment on your sibling.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
gaur 10y ago
> This means that by studying the different system (eg. the wormhole in the lab), the physicists are probing the mathematical structure of the theory of the original system I just don't buy that argument, because it is essentially the same argument that was used to support the ether hypothesis. Both sound and light are governed by a wave equation. Since sound is observed to have a preferred frame (the rest frame of the medium), the above argument asserts that light should also have a preferred frame, since the mathematics is the same. But that line of reasoning is obviously wrong, as we know now. I don't think that observing some wormhole-like feature in a metamaterial provides any information about how wormholes may or may not behave in GR. The entire endeavor of analogue gravity seems specious to me.
- abdullahkhalids 10y ago
  Science going wrong (ether) is not a bad thing. In fact, if scientists were not routinely wrong, we would suspect there was something wrong with our scientific method. Let me challenge your argument more directly. Postulating ether after observing that sound and light have similar properties (wave behaviour) is not stupid. It is the logical thing to do. It was also a hypothesis. Scientists did well-designed experiments and eventually realized that light does not a need a medium to travel. The scientific process correctly identified falsehood. Outcome: we are clear on which properties light and sound share (wave equation) and which they don't (medium or lack thereof) I haven't read the paper, but let me make a statement about metamaterial wormholes. Metamaterial experiments in the lab might be able to simulate a type of wormholes. If they can then we know that within another theory that shares enough math with EM will also have wormholes of that type. The question then is if GR has and EM share enough of that mathematical structure. If they do then these types of wormholes will also exist in GR. This is a different way of investigating GR wormholes then directly looking at the theory of GR. The differences between EM theory and GR might make it easier to discover wormholes in the former than in the latter. TLDR; Let scientists get creative.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - semi-extrinsic 10y ago

PhasmaFelis 10y ago

At least they didn't try to connect it to a marginally-related bit of pop culture. Remember when some Berkeley guys published a way to bend light around an object, and every goddamn headline included the words "Harry Potter invisibility cloak"?