6 ms·

Honeybees are found to interact with Quantum fields

61 points by ihodes 16y ago

CodeMage 16y ago
Based on the content of the article, it would be more accurate to say that "honeybees are speculated to interact with quantum fields".
chanux 16y ago
Overheard - "Code red. Humans know our secret."
- CallMeV 16y ago
  I am biting my tongue here to keep myself from making references to recent episodes of Doctor Who.
CallMeV 16y ago
Thank you for this article. Just the thing to get my brain going after the indulgences of the weekend. It also knocks me flat to contemplate the ideas this intriguing article generates. It does good to be staggered by something new once in a while: it keeps complacency at bay.
lt 16y ago
Susprisingly well explained for something that involves math, biology and physics. Made me laugh: The flag manifold, she notes, in addition to providing mathematicians with pure joy, also happens to be useful to physicists (...)
aristidb 16y ago
According only to that linked article, there are two separate claims: 1. Bee dances are based on 2-dimensional projections of 6-dimensional flag manifolds. 2. Bees detect quark quantum fields, hypothesized because they can also be described as flag manifolds. The first claim seems to be much more plausible and interesting to me. I do not really understand flag manifolds, but are they computationally difficult to project to 2D?
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  I do not really understand flag manifolds, but are they computationally difficult to project to 2D? Not for the purposes of this article. It might be computationally difficult to predict the progress of a dance as t -> infinity (to answer this question, I'd need to know more about flag manifolds), but it's unlikely that bees solve that problem.
yummyfajitas 16y ago
I'll repost my comment from the last version of this article, since I don't think any new developments have invalidated it. This connection to QFT is almost surely nonsense. The flag manifold in question comes from matrix groups; basically, consider some subset of 3x3 matrices which satisfy a certain property. I.e., certain types of transformations of a 3d space. While the space of 3x3 matrices has 3x3=9 dimensions, subsets can have fewer dimensions (in this case, 6). The two-dimensional projections she discovered are functions of the 6 dimensional matrices. So here is the occams razor explanation for what is happening. Inside the bee's head is an ODE (ordinary differential equation) solver, basically an analog computer. Just think of the ODE solver as a complicated timer, but with output depending on both time and some hidden variable. These are common objects in biology, and don't require many neurons. The output of the ODE solver is wired to some neurons which reduce 6 variables to 2, according to the formula she discovered. This is a fantastic discovery, a triumph of applied math. But the connection to QFT is almost surely coincidence: QFT uses symmetries of matrix groups over 3 dimensions, and the bee (which lives in 3 dimensions) also does. This phenomenon is called universality. Certain objects repeat across diverse areas simply because it is the only logical way (or the most common logical way) that things could happen. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=391396 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=391396
- SmokenJoe 16y ago
  That made me think more than the article. Why anyone would assume that I find it strange that the articles subject would would be so good at math and yet so willing to disregard Occam's razor. It is a good example of how peoples desires shape their thinking.
- ewjordan 16y ago
  You've summed up the technical bit of this perfectly, nothing to add there. Would be a very interesting bit of research, but the speculation really drives me mad, as it's so out there and without evidence to back it up that it's not even worth considering. I have to go further, though - that the researcher is so quick to automatically draw that line connecting two phenomena that both involve group theory as being causally related indicates, to me, that we should be skeptical even about whether the explanation of the bee behavior is correct in any detail. Sometimes when you already know what you really want to "discover", it's very easy to see connections and patterns that don't hold up very well under further scrutiny. The "this group has something to do with bees, and it's also in QFT, ZOMG bees must read quantum fields!" line of logic is so naive (yummyfajitas explained why) that it really makes me suspicious about the whole bit of research. Scientists should keep sloppy thinking like that to themselves (analogy is a great way to guide your research efforts, and once in a while two appearances of the same group in seemingly unrelated phenomena will, in fact, be connected), and when they don't even realize that this kind of thinking is sloppy, it's not a good sign...
nickpinkston 16y ago
Yes, she has probably been reading too much Deepak Chopra - but the comments saying things like "scientists should keep that kind of sloppy thinking to themselves" seem to be off the mark in the other direction. If a serious researcher, like she's trying to be, has an idea that there may be even a slight chance something amazing might be happening, they should talk to everyone she knows in the field - not keep it to herself. If a journal is willing to publish - it must have past some muster. It's not like this is going to clutter the field. Most of the amazing ideas in science where heretical in their time (even to other scientists) - we should encourage this type of thinking in science instead of encouraging only those unwilling to take any risks.
varjag 16y ago
I smell Penrose pixie dust.
suprafly 16y ago
Quite interesting. Thank you.
boneheadmed 16y ago
Having a background in biology with an interest in physics and extra-dimensionality, I found this article very intriguing. I immediately thought of the mathematicians who developed the theory of prions (the likely causative agent of Creutzfeldt_Jakob Disease otherwise know as Mad Cow Disease) being a protein only transmissible infection even before it was though to be biologically plausible.
Sukotto 16y ago
This: I wasn't looking for a connection between bees and the flag manifold," she says. "I was just doing my research. The curves were nothing special in themselves, except that the dance patterns kept emerging. reminds me of that great quote from Issac Asimov: The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' I found it! but '... That's funny ...

61 points by ihodes 16y ago

Based on the content of the article, it would be more accurate to say that "honeybees are speculated to interact with quantum fields".

chanux 16y ago

Overheard - "Code red. Humans know our secret."

CallMeV 16y ago
I am biting my tongue here to keep myself from making references to recent episodes of Doctor Who.

CallMeV 16y ago

Thank you for this article. Just the thing to get my brain going after the indulgences of the weekend. It also knocks me flat to contemplate the ideas this intriguing article generates. It does good to be staggered by something new once in a while: it keeps complacency at bay.

lt 16y ago

Susprisingly well explained for something that involves math, biology and physics. Made me laugh: The flag manifold, she notes, in addition to providing mathematicians with pure joy, also happens to be useful to physicists (...)

aristidb 16y ago

According only to that linked article, there are two separate claims: 1. Bee dances are based on 2-dimensional projections of 6-dimensional flag manifolds. 2. Bees detect quark quantum fields, hypothesized because they can also be described as flag manifolds. The first claim seems to be much more plausible and interesting to me. I do not really understand flag manifolds, but are they computationally difficult to project to 2D?

yummyfajitas 16y ago
I do not really understand flag manifolds, but are they computationally difficult to project to 2D? Not for the purposes of this article. It might be computationally difficult to predict the progress of a dance as t -> infinity (to answer this question, I'd need to know more about flag manifolds), but it's unlikely that bees solve that problem.

yummyfajitas 16y ago

I'll repost my comment from the last version of this article, since I don't think any new developments have invalidated it. This connection to QFT is almost surely nonsense. The flag manifold in question comes from matrix groups; basically, consider some subset of 3x3 matrices which satisfy a certain property. I.e., certain types of transformations of a 3d space. While the space of 3x3 matrices has 3x3=9 dimensions, subsets can have fewer dimensions (in this case, 6). The two-dimensional projections she discovered are functions of the 6 dimensional matrices. So here is the occams razor explanation for what is happening. Inside the bee's head is an ODE (ordinary differential equation) solver, basically an analog computer. Just think of the ODE solver as a complicated timer, but with output depending on both time and some hidden variable. These are common objects in biology, and don't require many neurons. The output of the ODE solver is wired to some neurons which reduce 6 variables to 2, according to the formula she discovered. This is a fantastic discovery, a triumph of applied math. But the connection to QFT is almost surely coincidence: QFT uses symmetries of matrix groups over 3 dimensions, and the bee (which lives in 3 dimensions) also does. This phenomenon is called universality. Certain objects repeat across diverse areas simply because it is the only logical way (or the most common logical way) that things could happen. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=391396 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=391396

SmokenJoe 16y ago
That made me think more than the article. Why anyone would assume that I find it strange that the articles subject would would be so good at math and yet so willing to disregard Occam's razor. It is a good example of how peoples desires shape their thinking.
ewjordan 16y ago
You've summed up the technical bit of this perfectly, nothing to add there. Would be a very interesting bit of research, but the speculation really drives me mad, as it's so out there and without evidence to back it up that it's not even worth considering. I have to go further, though - that the researcher is so quick to automatically draw that line connecting two phenomena that both involve group theory as being causally related indicates, to me, that we should be skeptical even about whether the explanation of the bee behavior is correct in any detail. Sometimes when you already know what you really want to "discover", it's very easy to see connections and patterns that don't hold up very well under further scrutiny. The "this group has something to do with bees, and it's also in QFT, ZOMG bees must read quantum fields!" line of logic is so naive (yummyfajitas explained why) that it really makes me suspicious about the whole bit of research. Scientists should keep sloppy thinking like that to themselves (analogy is a great way to guide your research efforts, and once in a while two appearances of the same group in seemingly unrelated phenomena will, in fact, be connected), and when they don't even realize that this kind of thinking is sloppy, it's not a good sign...

nickpinkston 16y ago

Yes, she has probably been reading too much Deepak Chopra - but the comments saying things like "scientists should keep that kind of sloppy thinking to themselves" seem to be off the mark in the other direction. If a serious researcher, like she's trying to be, has an idea that there may be even a slight chance something amazing might be happening, they should talk to everyone she knows in the field - not keep it to herself. If a journal is willing to publish - it must have past some muster. It's not like this is going to clutter the field. Most of the amazing ideas in science where heretical in their time (even to other scientists) - we should encourage this type of thinking in science instead of encouraging only those unwilling to take any risks.

varjag 16y ago

I smell Penrose pixie dust.

suprafly 16y ago

Quite interesting. Thank you.

boneheadmed 16y ago

Having a background in biology with an interest in physics and extra-dimensionality, I found this article very intriguing. I immediately thought of the mathematicians who developed the theory of prions (the likely causative agent of Creutzfeldt_Jakob Disease otherwise know as Mad Cow Disease) being a protein only transmissible infection even before it was though to be biologically plausible.

Sukotto 16y ago

This: I wasn't looking for a connection between bees and the flag manifold," she says. "I was just doing my research. The curves were nothing special in themselves, except that the dance patterns kept emerging. reminds me of that great quote from Issac Asimov: The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' I found it! but '... That's funny ...