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I don't understand why Quanta magazine keeps getting promoted on HN. Guys, it's sensational writing. Not scientific. Please understand this. Quanta is like Wire

I don't understand why Quanta magazine keeps getting promoted on HN. Guys, it's sensational writing. Not scientific. Please understand this. Quanta is like Wired. Poor academic quality and sensational writing. Neither are based in scientific rigor. I'm majoring in Pure Maths and this is annoying to see yet another poor scientific article on Math.

soVeryTired 10y ago
How would you improve it? The the heuristic linking the Riemann hypothesis to a quantum system is actually taken pretty seriously as an avenue of attack on the problem.
thanatropism 10y ago
Was that article on symplectic geometry in Quanta? My work is with algorithms that simulate conservative systems and that sounded pretty good to my ears. Of course they were with the human angle by the end, but still they did a damn good job in explaining what a "cotangent bundle" is.
- adyavanapalli 10y ago
  From what I've read on quanta, they write remarkably clear articles for their target audience. And I've even read the referenced paper by Bender et al. I think the author has done a good job in describing what the heck the paper was about.
- heimatau 10y ago
  My bad. Hopefully this [1] comment and this [2] one helps clear up my position. They are accurate, yes. But poor in the sense that it's all conjecture, not evidence based. 1 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14046334 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14046334 2 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14046131 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14046131
bvv 10y ago
It's most certainly not scientific writing. But I think that is not the point of these publications -- they are meant for a wide audience. So I think I should interpret your criticism as saying that quanta does a poor job in maintaining rigor while trying to explain advanced topics in mathematics and theoretical physics to a wide audience. My impression, on the other hand, is that their reporting on these topics beats similar publications hands down. I am therefore happy to recommend it to interested laypeople, for example to my (few...) friends outside of academia and to people here on HN. By the way, I hope you realize that these two viewpoints are not completely orthogonal.
- heimatau 10y ago
  > By the way, I hope you realize that these two viewpoints are not completely orthogonal. You win the Fields Medal. :) I appreciate your feedback and you seemed to have interpreted my text words as intended. I disagree with your conclusion but you do understand my position. I'm grateful for that. So much can be misunderstood through the web. I point others to your comment to hopefully elaborate. I do think Quanta does a poor job at maintaining the rigor and no they aren't as bad as other publications. But we should hold them to a higher standard (heck all publishers). They are closer to what I think is needed in the industry but it's too much hype for me and not enough rigor.
adyavanapalli 10y ago
Please describe which parts are "poor" in your opinion.
- heimatau 10y ago
  Sure. First, even though Math and Physics are similar, they aren't. To me, it's like saying the book '1984' prevented dictatorial rule. Literature can have a societal impact but we shouldn't be championing a new book, that hasn't been written by authors very few have heard of. (Mr. Berry and Mr. Keating may have laid the ground work but Mr. Bender, Brody and Muller have only say 'if we write this book, we'll change society'. Maybe...but maybe not.) Second, nothing in math is proved by physics. Math is separate. The rigor of math is a high bar to prove Riemann's hypo but physics will not and cannot pure any mathematical idea. It can demonstrate something but it can't PROVE anything. Third, namely due to my second reason. I've grown a distaste for Quanta's mag. It's sensational. Not rigorous. And heck, some how this is published in a journal "If the analysis presented here can be made rigorous to show that ^H is manifestly self-adjoint, then this implies that the Riemann hypothesis holds true" ( I added for emphasis). If I were to say 'hey I have this thesis, if I can prove it....I proved it'. Umm, why is this news? Why is this something that many gravitate towards? Let's stop 'hype'ing the news. Let's report it. This kind of publishing is garbage and doesn't foster additional scientific discoveries. They should focus on 'if Riemann's hypo is true' they have discovered 'x, y, z'. Many things have been derived by assuming Riemann's true. These new ideas are pushing our scientific understanding. Let's focus on that, not the hype of bs.
  - adyavanapalli 10y ago
    I think you're mistaken in thinking that the arguments presented by Bender et al are "physical", in the sense that you mean. Operator theory, Hilbert spaces, Lebegue measures, etc. are all purely mathematical constructs that are incidentally used to model Quantum Mechanics and derive physical insight. The constructs themselves are grounded in the usual sense of mathematical rigor. The inspiration to attack this conjecture, the Riemann hypothesis, framed as a quantum system might come from physical intuition, but everything else is rigorous. I think Terry Tao gave an example of this sort of "inspired" thinking when he described the proof of the prime number theorem as listening to the "music" of the primes: "We start with a "sound wave" that is "noisy" at the prime numbers and silent at other numbers; this is the von Mangoldt function. Then we analyze its notes or frequencies by subjecting it to a process akin to Fourier transform; this is the Mellin Transform. The next and most difficult step is to prove that certain "notes" cannot occur in this music. This exclusion of certain notes leads to the statement of the prime number theorem."
areyousure 10y ago
> I'm majoring in Pure Maths and this is annoying to see yet another poor scientific article on Math. I dislike personal qualifications-based arguments, so I'm loathe to contribute to them. However, for people who are persuaded by mentions of qualifications: I have a PhD in mathematics and I think Quanta magazine is more-or-less the best popular-level writing available on the subject. Still, I will attempt to contribute on issues of substance. I thought that everything in this article was fine. It's an old idea, as mentioned in this comment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert%E2%80%93P%C3%B3lya_conjecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert%E2%80%93P%C3%B3lya_con... As such, perhaps the article would benefit from some history. As mentioned on the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert%E2%80%93P%C3%B3lya_conjecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert%E2%80%93P%C3%B3lya_con... observations regarding the distribution of zeros on the critical line led directly to early results in random matrix theory. This 2009 interview with Freeman Dyson discusses this connection, as well as this approach to the Riemann Hypothesis (Dyson refers to it as "a fourth joke of nature"): http://www.ams.org/notices/200902/rtx090200212p.pdf http://www.ams.org/notices/200902/rtx090200212p.pdf I recommend reading that interview in its entirety, or at least the section on "jokes of nature", for Dyson's thoughts on a lot of subjects.
- heimatau 10y ago
  > I dislike personal qualifications-based arguments, so I'm loathe to contribute to them. Umm. There is a difference being being treated for an infection by a MD and a PhD in Philosophy. Context is key. I'm not trying to 'puff up' and make it an ego competition. Instead, I'm trying to provide some context with my feedback. Nor do I intend to speak for 'all' of anything, let alone mathematicians. (Specifically, I'm not just a layman providing feedback on this math/physics article) I appreciate you taking the time to provide feedback. I'm most interested in the pdf. When I get a brief moment, I'll check it out. Ciao!

soVeryTired 10y ago

How would you improve it? The the heuristic linking the Riemann hypothesis to a quantum system is actually taken pretty seriously as an avenue of attack on the problem.

thanatropism 10y ago

Was that article on symplectic geometry in Quanta? My work is with algorithms that simulate conservative systems and that sounded pretty good to my ears. Of course they were with the human angle by the end, but still they did a damn good job in explaining what a "cotangent bundle" is.

adyavanapalli 10y ago
From what I've read on quanta, they write remarkably clear articles for their target audience. And I've even read the referenced paper by Bender et al. I think the author has done a good job in describing what the heck the paper was about.
heimatau 10y ago
My bad. Hopefully this [1] comment and this [2] one helps clear up my position. They are accurate, yes. But poor in the sense that it's all conjecture, not evidence based. 1 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14046334 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14046334 2 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14046131 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14046131

bvv 10y ago

It's most certainly not scientific writing. But I think that is not the point of these publications -- they are meant for a wide audience. So I think I should interpret your criticism as saying that quanta does a poor job in maintaining rigor while trying to explain advanced topics in mathematics and theoretical physics to a wide audience. My impression, on the other hand, is that their reporting on these topics beats similar publications hands down. I am therefore happy to recommend it to interested laypeople, for example to my (few...) friends outside of academia and to people here on HN. By the way, I hope you realize that these two viewpoints are not completely orthogonal.

heimatau 10y ago
> By the way, I hope you realize that these two viewpoints are not completely orthogonal. You win the Fields Medal. :) I appreciate your feedback and you seemed to have interpreted my text words as intended. I disagree with your conclusion but you do understand my position. I'm grateful for that. So much can be misunderstood through the web. I point others to your comment to hopefully elaborate. I do think Quanta does a poor job at maintaining the rigor and no they aren't as bad as other publications. But we should hold them to a higher standard (heck all publishers). They are closer to what I think is needed in the industry but it's too much hype for me and not enough rigor.

adyavanapalli 10y ago

Please describe which parts are "poor" in your opinion.

heimatau 10y ago
Sure. First, even though Math and Physics are similar, they aren't. To me, it's like saying the book '1984' prevented dictatorial rule. Literature can have a societal impact but we shouldn't be championing a new book, that hasn't been written by authors very few have heard of. (Mr. Berry and Mr. Keating may have laid the ground work but Mr. Bender, Brody and Muller have only say 'if we write this book, we'll change society'. Maybe...but maybe not.) Second, nothing in math is proved by physics. Math is separate. The rigor of math is a high bar to prove Riemann's hypo but physics will not and cannot pure any mathematical idea. It can demonstrate something but it can't PROVE anything. Third, namely due to my second reason. I've grown a distaste for Quanta's mag. It's sensational. Not rigorous. And heck, some how this is published in a journal "If the analysis presented here can be made rigorous to show that ^H is manifestly self-adjoint, then this implies that the Riemann hypothesis holds true" ( I added for emphasis). If I were to say 'hey I have this thesis, if I can prove it....I proved it'. Umm, why is this news? Why is this something that many gravitate towards? Let's stop 'hype'ing the news. Let's report it. This kind of publishing is garbage and doesn't foster additional scientific discoveries. They should focus on 'if Riemann's hypo is true' they have discovered 'x, y, z'. Many things have been derived by assuming Riemann's true. These new ideas are pushing our scientific understanding. Let's focus on that, not the hype of bs.
- adyavanapalli 10y ago
  I think you're mistaken in thinking that the arguments presented by Bender et al are "physical", in the sense that you mean. Operator theory, Hilbert spaces, Lebegue measures, etc. are all purely mathematical constructs that are incidentally used to model Quantum Mechanics and derive physical insight. The constructs themselves are grounded in the usual sense of mathematical rigor. The inspiration to attack this conjecture, the Riemann hypothesis, framed as a quantum system might come from physical intuition, but everything else is rigorous. I think Terry Tao gave an example of this sort of "inspired" thinking when he described the proof of the prime number theorem as listening to the "music" of the primes: "We start with a "sound wave" that is "noisy" at the prime numbers and silent at other numbers; this is the von Mangoldt function. Then we analyze its notes or frequencies by subjecting it to a process akin to Fourier transform; this is the Mellin Transform. The next and most difficult step is to prove that certain "notes" cannot occur in this music. This exclusion of certain notes leads to the statement of the prime number theorem."

areyousure 10y ago

> I'm majoring in Pure Maths and this is annoying to see yet another poor scientific article on Math. I dislike personal qualifications-based arguments, so I'm loathe to contribute to them. However, for people who are persuaded by mentions of qualifications: I have a PhD in mathematics and I think Quanta magazine is more-or-less the best popular-level writing available on the subject. Still, I will attempt to contribute on issues of substance. I thought that everything in this article was fine. It's an old idea, as mentioned in this comment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert%E2%80%93P%C3%B3lya_conjecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert%E2%80%93P%C3%B3lya_con... As such, perhaps the article would benefit from some history. As mentioned on the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert%E2%80%93P%C3%B3lya_conjecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert%E2%80%93P%C3%B3lya_con... observations regarding the distribution of zeros on the critical line led directly to early results in random matrix theory. This 2009 interview with Freeman Dyson discusses this connection, as well as this approach to the Riemann Hypothesis (Dyson refers to it as "a fourth joke of nature"): http://www.ams.org/notices/200902/rtx090200212p.pdf http://www.ams.org/notices/200902/rtx090200212p.pdf I recommend reading that interview in its entirety, or at least the section on "jokes of nature", for Dyson's thoughts on a lot of subjects.

heimatau 10y ago
> I dislike personal qualifications-based arguments, so I'm loathe to contribute to them. Umm. There is a difference being being treated for an infection by a MD and a PhD in Philosophy. Context is key. I'm not trying to 'puff up' and make it an ego competition. Instead, I'm trying to provide some context with my feedback. Nor do I intend to speak for 'all' of anything, let alone mathematicians. (Specifically, I'm not just a layman providing feedback on this math/physics article) I appreciate you taking the time to provide feedback. I'm most interested in the pdf. When I get a brief moment, I'll check it out. Ciao!