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My impression as a layman is that quantamagazine.org is leaking a lot of ... ambitious ... physics headlines into HN; I've kind of stopped clicking on them afte

My impression as a layman is that quantamagazine.org is leaking a lot of ... ambitious ... physics headlines into HN; I've kind of stopped clicking on them after the first few. Physicists in the audience, is that an accurate assessment or should I go back to excitedly clicking through when I see them?

rf15 9y ago
I am just into physics as a hobby as well, but yes, the site is a somewhat extreme variant of soft/popular science. (maybe extreme isn't the right word, but it's very much inside this category with all the enthusiasm that comes with it)
QAPereo 9y ago
I’d call it... aspirational. It’s not there yet, but it’s almost always an interesting discussion. Typically for pop-sci it oversells the matter, but it feels more enthusiastic than deluded or dumb. Just my gut though, as a dilettante.
nyc111 9y ago
I like their biology, natural sciences and mathematics articles. They are usually an interview with the researcher and a video.
kowdermeister 9y ago
> leaking a lot of ... ambitious ... physics headlines into HN QuantaMagazine is a very good bridge between cutting edge research and layman. What does leak even mean? They don't write titles to be "hackernewsed". This headline in question is also totally normal, not sure why you have a problem with it.
- SubiculumCode 9y ago
  The title suggests that a discovery had been made that explains why the universe exists. Can you come up with a more grandiose title?
  - kowdermeister 9y ago
    Well, it IS grandiose if true (like the word suggest anticipate). I don't see how is this not accurate.
    - posterboy 9y ago
      Mystery is a weasel-word and I suppose the article doesn't explain what is so mysterious about the universes existence, because if it would be explained, it wouldn't be mysterious. Edit: okay, it's in the first paragraph, but still. Scientists are trying to detect new particles or particle interactions. Nothing new about that, superficially speaking. but it doesn't explain all of the big bang, maybe a piece of the puzzle, but not at all why it happened.
      - pvg 9y ago
        'Mystery' is not a 'weasel word', unless you find something particularly weasely about the concept of mystery itself.
        posterboy 9y ago
        Mystery is the epitome of weasel words. A weasel word obscures rather than clarifying. Something obscure is a mysterious. See also my edit. Another offense to scientific writing is the antropomorphism. It's actually the scientists who actively suggest the story and they surely wouldn't go for quite as bold a statement. In terms of storytelling we can assume that there's a lot of importance in what isn't said, and that's often achieved by exaggeration of known wrongs, as in sarcasm. Nothing particularly wrong about that, but not terribly scientific. Take away the whole fluff and you have a report about an experimental result with low p-value and the plan to improve it via added reaction mass which is not further explained. That's hardly the mystery, it's a key to the puzzle, maybe. Edit: to elaborate further on the weaselisms. Solutio to mystery kinda annihilates, just like antiparticles and counterparts, so the headline corrected for all would be: Scientists suggest Neutrinos prove Universes Existence. Welp, color me slightly unimpressed. Though I'm complaining on a high level, this is actually super cool just not new to me.
qubex 9y ago
I studied applied mathematics and I often point those (few) people who ask me questions about abstract issues towards their articles (e.g. about symmetry and group theory). They're excellent in that regard. Regarding other subjects, I'm no expert, but I appreciate their style (and I have to say their infographics are very pleasing on the eye). I never watch videos or multimedia content so I can't vouch for the videos either (which others in this thread have expressed appreciation for).
specialp 9y ago
I work for a physics journal and when we make articles for the public to describe findings we have the opposite problem when it comes to authors. Scientists especially in theory are reluctant to ascribe much at all to their research other than the phenomenon shown. In research this is a good thing, but when we want to show the public what these very theoretical or specialist discoveries mean to our total understanding of physics it is not as helpful. Just getting anyone to speculate what a finding means is hard. In this case, this is something that might explain a CP violation that can explain why we exist in a universe of matter. To a physicist, explaining it is a CP violation is grandiose enough. But in reality the title is not at all misleading as CP parity is one of the biggest unsolved problems in physics, and yes it is a mystery as to why we have a universe of matter that exists. So while it may seem ambitious to a person in the field, it is indeed truthful and exciting research.
- yk 9y ago
  Quite simply, when the specialist tell you that it is not news worthy, then it is probably not news worthy. Otherwise we get all these new particle discovered clickbait, where the journalists just neglect to mention that the "particle" in question is a compound state that was well studied in the 60ies or that the particle in question is just an oscillation mode of a crystal. (I am not joking, both are examples that were well upvoted on HN.) And that is just the ideal case, where journalists report on experiments. In theory most articles are just as interesting as someone created a branch on a github project, that is the very first step towards something that may develop into something interesting, or it may not. So yeah, "just getting anyone to speculate what a finding means is hard," because everybody knows that science journalists try to feed the public bullshit. Seriously, every single climate change denier I ever discussed with has given me page after page of links to popular science reporting where the entire problem was, that the journalist found someone who was willing to speculate and these speculations turned out to be wrong.
pwaai 9y ago
> My impression as a layman is that quantamagazine.org is leaking a lot of ... ambitious ... physics headlines into HN; I've kind of stopped clicking on them after the first few. I find this to be a repeated pattern where some fault is immediately assumed by the submission without any explanations to support their case as to why HN audience should mistrust it. > Physicists in the audience, is that an accurate assessment or should I go back to excitedly clicking through when I see them? It doesn't instill much confidence to call something shit and then forcing the onus on somebody else with more expertise to support their jaundiced claim without any supporting arguments. At least if you are going to call something as untrustworthy, back it up with examples and clear explanations as to why we should not trust it.
cozzyd 9y ago
Well, the fact that CP violation is related to the "existence of the universe" (which I guess refers to Baryogenesis) is not ambitious. It's also not terribly surprising that there would be CP violation in neutrinos. It's true that the significance isn't enough to meet the standard in particle physics, but a result will always be weak before it is strong, so this is still something that's exciting. It should also be noted that the 5-sigma "standard" is set to be so stringent partially because physicists in the past were not so good at estimating things like trial factors and systematic errors. We are better at this now (and T2K has some talented statistics-minded physicists on it), so I wouldn't immediately dismiss it on those grounds.
ravar 9y ago
I can't speak for their articles in general, but this one seems to not be clickbait. One of the objectives of T2K is to measure the cp violating phase of neutrino oscillations. As more data is being collected it is appearing there is a good chance that neutrinos indeed do violate cp symmetry.

rf15 9y ago

I am just into physics as a hobby as well, but yes, the site is a somewhat extreme variant of soft/popular science. (maybe extreme isn't the right word, but it's very much inside this category with all the enthusiasm that comes with it)

QAPereo 9y ago

I’d call it... aspirational. It’s not there yet, but it’s almost always an interesting discussion. Typically for pop-sci it oversells the matter, but it feels more enthusiastic than deluded or dumb. Just my gut though, as a dilettante.

nyc111 9y ago

I like their biology, natural sciences and mathematics articles. They are usually an interview with the researcher and a video.

kowdermeister 9y ago

> leaking a lot of ... ambitious ... physics headlines into HN QuantaMagazine is a very good bridge between cutting edge research and layman. What does leak even mean? They don't write titles to be "hackernewsed". This headline in question is also totally normal, not sure why you have a problem with it.

SubiculumCode 9y ago
The title suggests that a discovery had been made that explains why the universe exists. Can you come up with a more grandiose title?
- kowdermeister 9y ago
  Well, it IS grandiose if true (like the word suggest anticipate). I don't see how is this not accurate.
  - posterboy 9y ago
    Mystery is a weasel-word and I suppose the article doesn't explain what is so mysterious about the universes existence, because if it would be explained, it wouldn't be mysterious. Edit: okay, it's in the first paragraph, but still. Scientists are trying to detect new particles or particle interactions. Nothing new about that, superficially speaking. but it doesn't explain all of the big bang, maybe a piece of the puzzle, but not at all why it happened.
    - pvg 9y ago
      'Mystery' is not a 'weasel word', unless you find something particularly weasely about the concept of mystery itself.
      - posterboy 9y ago
        Mystery is the epitome of weasel words. A weasel word obscures rather than clarifying. Something obscure is a mysterious. See also my edit. Another offense to scientific writing is the antropomorphism. It's actually the scientists who actively suggest the story and they surely wouldn't go for quite as bold a statement. In terms of storytelling we can assume that there's a lot of importance in what isn't said, and that's often achieved by exaggeration of known wrongs, as in sarcasm. Nothing particularly wrong about that, but not terribly scientific. Take away the whole fluff and you have a report about an experimental result with low p-value and the plan to improve it via added reaction mass which is not further explained. That's hardly the mystery, it's a key to the puzzle, maybe. Edit: to elaborate further on the weaselisms. Solutio to mystery kinda annihilates, just like antiparticles and counterparts, so the headline corrected for all would be: Scientists suggest Neutrinos prove Universes Existence. Welp, color me slightly unimpressed. Though I'm complaining on a high level, this is actually super cool just not new to me.

qubex 9y ago

I studied applied mathematics and I often point those (few) people who ask me questions about abstract issues towards their articles (e.g. about symmetry and group theory). They're excellent in that regard. Regarding other subjects, I'm no expert, but I appreciate their style (and I have to say their infographics are very pleasing on the eye). I never watch videos or multimedia content so I can't vouch for the videos either (which others in this thread have expressed appreciation for).

specialp 9y ago

I work for a physics journal and when we make articles for the public to describe findings we have the opposite problem when it comes to authors. Scientists especially in theory are reluctant to ascribe much at all to their research other than the phenomenon shown. In research this is a good thing, but when we want to show the public what these very theoretical or specialist discoveries mean to our total understanding of physics it is not as helpful. Just getting anyone to speculate what a finding means is hard. In this case, this is something that might explain a CP violation that can explain why we exist in a universe of matter. To a physicist, explaining it is a CP violation is grandiose enough. But in reality the title is not at all misleading as CP parity is one of the biggest unsolved problems in physics, and yes it is a mystery as to why we have a universe of matter that exists. So while it may seem ambitious to a person in the field, it is indeed truthful and exciting research.

yk 9y ago
Quite simply, when the specialist tell you that it is not news worthy, then it is probably not news worthy. Otherwise we get all these new particle discovered clickbait, where the journalists just neglect to mention that the "particle" in question is a compound state that was well studied in the 60ies or that the particle in question is just an oscillation mode of a crystal. (I am not joking, both are examples that were well upvoted on HN.) And that is just the ideal case, where journalists report on experiments. In theory most articles are just as interesting as someone created a branch on a github project, that is the very first step towards something that may develop into something interesting, or it may not. So yeah, "just getting anyone to speculate what a finding means is hard," because everybody knows that science journalists try to feed the public bullshit. Seriously, every single climate change denier I ever discussed with has given me page after page of links to popular science reporting where the entire problem was, that the journalist found someone who was willing to speculate and these speculations turned out to be wrong.

pwaai 9y ago

> My impression as a layman is that quantamagazine.org is leaking a lot of ... ambitious ... physics headlines into HN; I've kind of stopped clicking on them after the first few. I find this to be a repeated pattern where some fault is immediately assumed by the submission without any explanations to support their case as to why HN audience should mistrust it. > Physicists in the audience, is that an accurate assessment or should I go back to excitedly clicking through when I see them? It doesn't instill much confidence to call something shit and then forcing the onus on somebody else with more expertise to support their jaundiced claim without any supporting arguments. At least if you are going to call something as untrustworthy, back it up with examples and clear explanations as to why we should not trust it.

cozzyd 9y ago

Well, the fact that CP violation is related to the "existence of the universe" (which I guess refers to Baryogenesis) is not ambitious. It's also not terribly surprising that there would be CP violation in neutrinos. It's true that the significance isn't enough to meet the standard in particle physics, but a result will always be weak before it is strong, so this is still something that's exciting. It should also be noted that the 5-sigma "standard" is set to be so stringent partially because physicists in the past were not so good at estimating things like trial factors and systematic errors. We are better at this now (and T2K has some talented statistics-minded physicists on it), so I wouldn't immediately dismiss it on those grounds.

ravar 9y ago

I can't speak for their articles in general, but this one seems to not be clickbait. One of the objectives of T2K is to measure the cp violating phase of neutrino oscillations. As more data is being collected it is appearing there is a good chance that neutrinos indeed do violate cp symmetry.