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‘Impossible’ particle discovery adds key piece to the strong force puzzle
- esarbe 5y agoInteresting read. But I'll wait for what Sabine has to say about it. :D
- tux3 5y agoSuperdeterminism predicts that it was always pre-determined I wouldn't really understand this article, and the universe left me no choice, so I have nothing to feel bad about. Sabine's blog exists in an interesting superposition of comforting and existential dread =]
- Mizza 5y agoI like Sabine, but I found her "takedown" of the multiverse/MWI ignored the most compelling argument for it, the computational argument proposed by Deutsch, and that was enough to make me skeptical of her other positions. Anybody know if she's ever addressed that anywhere?
- naasking 5y agoWhat is the computational argument?
- spullara 5y agohttps://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/05/02/dream-machine https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/05/02/dream-machine
- naasking 5y agoI figured this might be the "quantum computation is computation done on parallel worlds". It just isn't that compelling [1], and is in fact arguably false [2]. That's probably why Sabine didn't touch on it. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1355219803000388 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13552... [2] https://arxiv.org/abs/1110.2514 https://arxiv.org/abs/1110.2514
- Mizza 5y agoBoth of those papers, and others like it, are by single authors in philosophy journals, not physics journals. I don't think they are 'serious' in the same way. That Arxiv one is particularly bad.
- naasking 5y ago"Particularly bad" in what sense? The notion that quantum computation happens in parallel universes is a philosophical position, not a scientific one, so of course philosophers of science are evaluating it.
- Mizza 5y agoIt introduces the fundamental question but never answers it. He quotes Deutsch partially, "explain how Shor’s algorithm works" - but doesn't answer this question. He also leaves out the important part of the quote: "To those who still cling to a single-universe world-view, I issue this challenge: explain how Shor’s algorithm works. I do not merely mean predict that it will work, which is merely a matter of solving a few uncontroversial equations. I mean provide an explanation. When Shor’s algorithm has factorized a number, using 10^500 or so times the computational resources than can be seen to be present, where was the number factorized? There are only about 10^80 atoms in the entire visible universe, an utterly minuscule number compared with 10^500. So if the visible universe were the extent of physical reality, physical reality would not even remotely contain the resources required to factorize such a large number. Who did factorize it, then? How, and where, was the computation performed?" Computation is real - it requires matter and energy. If Shor's algorithm can factor a number so large that it would require more matter than there is available in the universe: _where is the computation occurring_? I have never seen this plainly addressed. I'm a layman, of course, which I why I would hope she'd break this argument down in her MWI video.
- jessaustin 5y agoThere are only about 1080 atoms in the entire visible universe... Should this be read as 10^80? The way it's written is confusing.
- leephillips 5y agoWell, you should be skeptical in general, no? What’s the alternative, just adopting some other person’s opinions? If this is about Sabine Hossenfelder, she has opinions and she has arguments. Sometimes she’s right, sometimes she’s wrong. Like everyone. Sometimes her opinions are well supported, sometimes I think not. Some of her explanations are sound, others contain mistakes.
- cmeacham98 5y agoI've never read Sabine Hossenfelder, so I can't comment specifically on her. However, life is about trusting other people and adopting their opinions. I do not have the time or energy to be an expert on every subject, so naturally I will have to read the opinions of other people who have spent time in that particular subject. Someone's previous record of factual accuracy as well as considering reasonable opposition to their points obviously will affect how much I trust them to influence my worldview, and how likely I am to believe what they say is true.
- ryan93 5y agoweird that people love to fanboy/fangirl anyone who has a reputation for criticism.
- Koshkin 5y agoWhy is it weird? Criticism draws attention.
- ryan93 5y agoShe’s not even an expert in this subject but she has name recognition so OP wants her opinion. Just weird.
- esarbe 5y agoOP is not a physicist and Sabine is able to break down the problems and issues with many of the scientific and unscientific theories that are thrown around so that even a layperson can follow the rational. So, I get the drift of the article. Do I have enough knowledge to make any reasonable assumptions about the validity of the findings it presents? Nope, not at all. That's why I cherish Sabine. She's down to earth and has an understanding of science that suits me. She's definitely more than enough physics under her belt[0] to be qualified to talk about these topics. Go away with your 'She not an expert'. Have you seen her qualifications? "Naw," I hear you say "she's a theoretical physicist, not a particle physicist." Yeah, well. I'm a Software Engineer. I can still tell if a Network Engineer tells bullshit. I do understand why some people hate on her; she's abrasive and irreverent. Some people don't like their ivory towers to be besmirched. [0] https://portal.dnb.de/opac/simpleSearch?reset=true&cqlMode=true&query=auRef%3D128372664&selectedCategory=any https://portal.dnb.de/opac/simpleSearch?reset=true&cqlMode=t...
- carbocation 5y ago> Polyakov’s analysis suggested that the four quarks banded together for a glorious 12 sextillionths of a second before an energy fluctuation conjured up two extra quarks and the group disintegrated into three mesons. Poetic and informative. What a sentence.
- wiz21c 5y agoI feel out of my element. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ks072waMayk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ks072waMayk
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- dmbaggett 5y agoI’m curious: could anyone knowledgeable share a bit about these QCD lattice models — are they incredibly complicated? Are there open source implementations of these models and if so, would the code make any sense to a non-physicist programmer?
- lisper 5y ago> are they incredibly complicated? That depends on what you mean by "complicated". Conceptually they are not too bad, it's basically just quantum field theory (which some might consider "incredibly complicated" so YMMV). But the devil is in the details. From the article: "While physicists know the exact equation that defines the strong force — the fundamental force that binds quarks together to make the protons and neutrons in the hearts of atoms, as well as other composite particles like tetraquarks — they can rarely solve this strange, endlessly iterative equation, so they struggle to predict the strong force’s effects." > Are there open source implementations of these models That I don't know. > and if so, would the code make any sense to a non-physicist programmer? Having seen code written by scientists, I can confidently answer this with: almost certainly not.
- datameta 5y ago>Having seen code written by scientists, I can confidently answer this with: almost certainly not. Got a kick out of that, thanks. I think there is a kind of compartmentalization of environments going on when one engages in scientific programming. It seems to often be structured more akin to math than code. I once worked with a brilliant multitalented individual who held a PhD in a specific field of physics that I cannot recall. In one instance they ported the orchestration software for a supercomputer from python into java, in a week. It was beautiful to read. This same person used single letter variables in their ML models and had virtually zero comments which made it somewhat difficult for me to follow their updates after a week of having not seen the code.
- ethbr0 5y agoTo me, it's a difference in professional gestalts(?) in highly trained individuals. Physical engineers, especially, have a very formalized, standardized way of looking at the world. They all share it, and so their code follows from that. Physicists, biologists, software developers all have different ways of looking at the world (some more standardized, some less). Our code follows from that. So while we may gripe they don't leverage (insert language arcana / convention), my intuition is our code would still look very different even if they did. Biggest example, as you point out: math-structured code, from math-heavy disciplines.
- nabla9 5y agoThese articles don't make clear distinctions between discoveries standard model framework, and completely new physics. This seems to be discovery within standard model. A new composite particle.
- stared 5y agoIt is my general impression with Quanta Magazine: an interesting phenomenon + a clickbaity title and headline (bordering on crackpotty).
- kordlessagain 5y agoFinally, warp drives.
- canjobear 5y agoIf it was a discovery outside the standard model it would be in the New York Times.
- Amin699 5y agoThe tetraquark now presents theorists with a solid target against which to test their mathematical machinery for approximating the strong force. Honing their approximations represents physicists’ main hope for understanding how quarks behave inside and outside atoms — and for teasing apart the effects of quarks from subtle signs of new fundamental particles that physicists are pursuing.
- NovaS1X 5y agoCan anyone informed and eager enough tell me how it's possible to measure something that only exists for "12 sextillionths of a second"? In my computer minded mode of thinking in sensors and clock cycles I can't imagine a way this is done.
- gizmo686 5y agoIt isn't. They measure the decay products and infer what happened.
- NovaS1X 5y agoThat makes sense. Thank you.
- frob 5y agoThe answer is you don't measure the particle directly, but instead measure its byproducts. I spent my graduate career studying the Upsilon meson, which is a particle dominated by two valence bottom quarks. The Upsilon exists for a similar amount of time and there is no way we can measure it directly. However, about 3% of the time, it will decay to a pair of highly energetic electrons and another 3% of the time, it will decay to a pair of muons. These extremely energetic leptons (think 99%+ the speed of light) are something we can detect as they come screaming out of the collision. (side note: an electron weighs ~ 511 keV in particle physics units. The Upsilon meson weighs at least 9.46 GeV depending on the state. That means each electron has at least 4.73 GeV of kinetic energy with a mass of 511 keV, or ~9000x more kinetic energy than its energy in mass). We have ways of measuring their energy, so we can reconstruct the mass of the original particle via $E=mc^2$ plus some kinetics.
- japhyr 5y agoI did an undergrad in physics, and at one point I wanted to be a particle physicist. But I didn't want to go straight to grad school, so I spent a couple years teaching middle school math and science. I loved that, and spent 25 years teaching instead of going back to physics. If you don't mind my asking, what are you doing now after spending years studying such a specific area of particle physics?