7 ms·

I've got a PhD in physics but am not a theorist. I do, however, maintain an interest in this material and I must confess that when you dig pass the gloss that S

I've got a PhD in physics but am not a theorist. I do, however, maintain an interest in this material and I must confess that when you dig pass the gloss that Susskind typically puts on the "quantum mechanics == gravity" spiel the actual theoretical case seems pretty distant/vague (to say nothing of the fact that there is nothing like experimental support for anything at all having to do with this because the experiments are presently impossible). What all this comes down to is a "mere" correspondence between some equations governing the way entanglement develops in time and the way some other gravitational systems evolve in time in a very specific sort of set up universe which is quite different from our own. Lots of physical phenomena have similar dynamical laws. Given the tenuousness of ADS/Cft and the differences between that imaginary universe and our own in number of dimensions and structure of spacetime, I think the assertion that these two phenomena supervene upon a shared ontological substance of some kind is provocative but hardly anything I'd write a New York Times article about. I mean for the lay reader this is basically bullshit which is more likely to confuse than illuminate. That said, if this kind of reporting sparks the interest of a young physicist out there, I guess its mostly harmless.

daveslash 4y ago
As a Lay Reader, about the only thing I understood was the last sentence of your second paragraph. Thank you.
notfed 4y ago
IMO, GPT-3-like articles like this are no different from blog spam recipe websites. What even is the point of this article? What is the mind bending secret? The holographic principle? Wormholes? Entanglement? It's unclear what the title was referring to, but none of these things are news. There's not even a well defined recipe at the end; we're just left with some kind of pop-physics stew.
- pndy 4y ago
  > What even is the point of this article? Harvesting the data from those who clicked on this link - business as usual
  - Rapzid 4y ago
    Words were paid for. Clicks were had.
- crazygringo 4y ago
  That's the thing that sucks about titles. Editors choose them, the journalist has zero control over them, and they test different variations on the site and then settle on the one with the most clickthroughs. Definitely lots of cases of Op-Ed contributors, especially, unhappy with seemingly borderline misleading titles given to their pieces. I don't mind it too much as a reader, but it can suck as a contributor because everyone thinks they're your words.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
kevinventullo 4y ago
“… hardly anything I'd write a New York Times article about.” Given that NYT devotes an entire section to the goings-on of old money New Yorkers, I’m not sure the bar is all that high. And hey sometimes coincidences are just that, but other times they can lead to profound theories. I’m reminded of Monstrous Moonshine for which Borcherds earned the Fields Medal in 1998: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monstrous_moonshine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monstrous_moonshine The term "monstrous moonshine" was coined by Conway, who, when told by John McKay in the late 1970s that the coefficient of q (namely 196884) was precisely one more than the degree of the smallest faithful complex representation of the monster group (namely 196883), replied that this was "moonshine" (in the sense of being a crazy or foolish idea). Thus, the term not only refers to the monster group M; it also refers to the perceived craziness of the intricate relationship between M and the theory of modular functions.
elefanten 4y ago
My immediate reaction to the headline was "oh, so NYT is now adding pop-sci clickbait to their repertoire?" Given all the other ways in which they've degenerated and embarrassed themselves in the last decade, I supposed they were bound to start doing this one too.
- LeftHandPath 4y ago
  Hah... Maybe they've figured out that most of their readers are the same pseudo-intellectuals that will misunderstand things like Schrodinger's Cat and refer to it like magic, quietly hoping that other people will look up to them as all the wiser for having referenced it. Like a bartender I met a while ago that confessed to me that he and his wife interpreted quantum mechanics in a way that borders on religious, using it to discredit the concept of free will altogether. > Take gravity, add quantum mechanics, stir. What do you get? Just maybe, a holographic cosmos. Something tells me I'll be hearing a lot of confused misinterpretations of this over the next few days... A lot like the confusion over entanglement after this year's Nobel prize.
  - tayo42 4y ago
    confessed is an interesting word choice? the bartender was being somehow deceptive about how they present their interpretation of quantum mechanics normally?
  - TechBro8615 4y ago
    Have you considered why the best explanations that the field of physics can offer are all interpretations? Maybe it's because there is a lot we don't know, and the patchwork of scientific theory we've built up iteratively over centuries is leaking in places for reasons we don't understand. If you accept this, then it should be hard to mock someone who offers their own interpretation, since none of us know the answer to so many fundamental questions underpinning the physical universe in our cosmological plane of existence. At best, you knew more than he did about what we don't know.
    - peteradio 4y ago
MilStdJunkie 4y ago
The piece feels a bit fluffy, but I agree that if it excites a new generation, a new bunch of physicists with a new way of looking at things, it's completely worth reading. On the other hand, I feel like it really missed the boat when it comes to the relation of entanglement to other properties of the macro universe. The notion that "geometry of spatial dimensions as emergent from networks of entanglement" is such an evocative idea that I don't understand how people aren't thinking about it all the time. What if certain systems are in fact in the same "place", even if they appear to be light years apart? What does "appear to be apart" even mean? To overuse an adjective, it's evocative. I do realize my understanding is barely that of a sparse layman, but it's still a fun mental toy to play with.
- throwaway81523 4y ago
  Article is ok I thought, but there have been some other ones that I liked a lot better. I remember thinking that this was pretty good: https://www.quantamagazine.org/tensor-networks-and-entanglement-20150428/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/tensor-networks-and-entanglem...
pdonis 4y ago
> if this kind of reporting sparks the interest of a young physicist out there, I guess its mostly harmless I'm not sure I agree. If reporting like this funnels more young physicists into doing this kind of research, which has been going on for decades without making any successful experimental predictions, then I don't think it's harmless. Not only that, but this kind of reporting has a subtext: Science is the Authority. Even when Science tells you what seems like obvious nonsense. And that pernicious effect goes far beyond a few young physicists. That is not to say that there aren't scientific claims that seem highly counterintuitive to the lay person, but which are nevertheless true. There are. But those claims are nailed down by massive quantities of experimental evidence that matches the predictions of the models to many decimal places. The speculative claims discussed in this article have no evidence to support them. Big difference. But you'll never find that out by reading these kinds of articles.
- random314 4y ago
  Einstein's relativity was purely theoretical when it was accepted world wide based on abstract principles. So, your characterization of how modern physics works is completely wrong.
  - pdonis 4y ago
    No, your claim regarding the historical facts is completely wrong. If by "relativity" you mean special relativity, nobody used it for anything when it was published. The first real use of it theoretically was to explain the Compton effect in 1921, based on experimental results. It took another decade or so for it to be routinely used, mainly due to its success in explaining the fine structure of atomic spectra and in developing quantum field theory. If you mean general relativity, the first event that could be said to have gotten it "accepted world wide" was the 1919 eclipse expeditions organized by Eddington, which confirmed the GR prediction of bending of light by the Sun. And even then acceptance of it was still limited (see below). Also, even before that, GR was known to correctly predict the extra precession of Mercury's perihelion, which could not be explained by Newtonian gravity. So that was a piece of evidence for GR that was known before it was published. Note that even after the 1919 eclipse expedition and the 1921 explanation of the Compton Effect, relativity was still considered too "out there" to justify a Nobel Prize; when Einstein got the prize in 1922 the Nobel committee specifically excluded relativity from the scientific work by Einstein that was the basis for it.
andirk 4y ago
Adding gloss to a topic without leaving the realm of truth can be helpful in inciting interest, as you mention. Similarly, Dr. Michael I. Jordan of UC Berkeley describes in no uncertain terms that the phrase "Artificial Intelligence" is misleading in the field of the same name [1]. He basically says our AI thus far is recommendation engines and a self driving car. Is the glossy, somewhat simplified discussion of quantum mechanics == gravity == anti-god particle also misleading? I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the 10th grade Algebra's imaginary number √-1 . [1] https://youtu.be/EYIKy_FM9x0?t=864 https://youtu.be/EYIKy_FM9x0?t=864
- pas 4y ago
  regarding √-1, the mystery is a bit simpler than with physics, because with math it is what it is, and there's no arguing about how real the math is :) that said, just as in physics we went from the concept of an atom (meaning an undividable whole) to a big ball of nuclear soup with protons and neutron and bound electrons raving around, then even further to noticing an even crazier confluence of chaos of quarks and gluons constantly churning in the nucleus, like that in math we went from integers to reals to complex numbers to saying hold my beer and "dividing number fields with irreducible polynomials" (see algebraic extension) and discovering all kinds of madness. in physics we used mightier and meaner matter smashers, in maths we used ... well, a similar amount of brute force of a certain kind, the kind that solved problems, rules of square roots be damned. and then it turns out that the rule was different all along, and congratulations now you have even more complicated numbers, the complex ones. just as in physics there's the always gnawing question of "okay, but what explains that small blip in the data?" there's the one in math about "okay, sure, that question is so simple-looking it's outright ridiculous/dumb, but how come nobody was able to answer it in decades/centuries? what if ...?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XCFQe2WVhw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XCFQe2WVhw
andrewflnr 4y ago
Vague, sure, but does physics have anything better to offer when it comes to quantum gravity? Granted I'm biased as a (lay) fan of ER=EPR. And I don't entirely disagree with you; the NYT is probably not helping here and maybe shouldn't have waded in.
- adastra22 4y ago
  There are lots of quantum gravity theories. Take your pick. The problem isn’t so much that we don’t know how to reconcile QM with GR, but that there are many ways to do it and we don’t know which is physical.
  - andrewflnr 4y ago
    Yes, that's rather my point. No use in singling out ER=EPR in that respect.
WhitneyLand 4y ago
As someone with a physics background does this sound right? From the article: According to Einstein’s general relativity, the information content of a black hole or any three-dimensional space — your living room, say, or the whole universe — was limited to the number of bits that could be encoded on an imaginary surface surrounding it. I thought this was more according to the Bekenstein bound than GR.
- pdonis 4y ago
  > I thought this was more according to the Bekenstein bound than GR. It is. The article is most certainly not a good source from which to try to learn any actual physics.
  - wrycoder 4y ago
    Overbye used to do better.
meltyness 4y ago
A talk came across my screen and a third of the way through a misleading and glossy description of QKD prompted me to stop watching and do something else with my time. I agree though that kind of optimism can be very motivational, which is great in an education system that is basically a water wheel of slapstick white gloves for you to stick your face in.

daveslash 4y ago

As a Lay Reader, about the only thing I understood was the last sentence of your second paragraph. Thank you.

notfed 4y ago

IMO, GPT-3-like articles like this are no different from blog spam recipe websites. What even is the point of this article? What is the mind bending secret? The holographic principle? Wormholes? Entanglement? It's unclear what the title was referring to, but none of these things are news. There's not even a well defined recipe at the end; we're just left with some kind of pop-physics stew.

pndy 4y ago
> What even is the point of this article? Harvesting the data from those who clicked on this link - business as usual
- Rapzid 4y ago
  Words were paid for. Clicks were had.
crazygringo 4y ago
That's the thing that sucks about titles. Editors choose them, the journalist has zero control over them, and they test different variations on the site and then settle on the one with the most clickthroughs. Definitely lots of cases of Op-Ed contributors, especially, unhappy with seemingly borderline misleading titles given to their pieces. I don't mind it too much as a reader, but it can suck as a contributor because everyone thinks they're your words.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

kevinventullo 4y ago

“… hardly anything I'd write a New York Times article about.” Given that NYT devotes an entire section to the goings-on of old money New Yorkers, I’m not sure the bar is all that high. And hey sometimes coincidences are just that, but other times they can lead to profound theories. I’m reminded of Monstrous Moonshine for which Borcherds earned the Fields Medal in 1998: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monstrous_moonshine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monstrous_moonshine The term "monstrous moonshine" was coined by Conway, who, when told by John McKay in the late 1970s that the coefficient of q (namely 196884) was precisely one more than the degree of the smallest faithful complex representation of the monster group (namely 196883), replied that this was "moonshine" (in the sense of being a crazy or foolish idea). Thus, the term not only refers to the monster group M; it also refers to the perceived craziness of the intricate relationship between M and the theory of modular functions.

elefanten 4y ago

My immediate reaction to the headline was "oh, so NYT is now adding pop-sci clickbait to their repertoire?" Given all the other ways in which they've degenerated and embarrassed themselves in the last decade, I supposed they were bound to start doing this one too.

LeftHandPath 4y ago
Hah... Maybe they've figured out that most of their readers are the same pseudo-intellectuals that will misunderstand things like Schrodinger's Cat and refer to it like magic, quietly hoping that other people will look up to them as all the wiser for having referenced it. Like a bartender I met a while ago that confessed to me that he and his wife interpreted quantum mechanics in a way that borders on religious, using it to discredit the concept of free will altogether. > Take gravity, add quantum mechanics, stir. What do you get? Just maybe, a holographic cosmos. Something tells me I'll be hearing a lot of confused misinterpretations of this over the next few days... A lot like the confusion over entanglement after this year's Nobel prize.
- tayo42 4y ago
  confessed is an interesting word choice? the bartender was being somehow deceptive about how they present their interpretation of quantum mechanics normally?
- TechBro8615 4y ago
  Have you considered why the best explanations that the field of physics can offer are all interpretations? Maybe it's because there is a lot we don't know, and the patchwork of scientific theory we've built up iteratively over centuries is leaking in places for reasons we don't understand. If you accept this, then it should be hard to mock someone who offers their own interpretation, since none of us know the answer to so many fundamental questions underpinning the physical universe in our cosmological plane of existence. At best, you knew more than he did about what we don't know.
  - peteradio 4y ago

MilStdJunkie 4y ago

The piece feels a bit fluffy, but I agree that if it excites a new generation, a new bunch of physicists with a new way of looking at things, it's completely worth reading. On the other hand, I feel like it really missed the boat when it comes to the relation of entanglement to other properties of the macro universe. The notion that "geometry of spatial dimensions as emergent from networks of entanglement" is such an evocative idea that I don't understand how people aren't thinking about it all the time. What if certain systems are in fact in the same "place", even if they appear to be light years apart? What does "appear to be apart" even mean? To overuse an adjective, it's evocative. I do realize my understanding is barely that of a sparse layman, but it's still a fun mental toy to play with.

throwaway81523 4y ago
Article is ok I thought, but there have been some other ones that I liked a lot better. I remember thinking that this was pretty good: https://www.quantamagazine.org/tensor-networks-and-entanglement-20150428/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/tensor-networks-and-entanglem...

pdonis 4y ago

> if this kind of reporting sparks the interest of a young physicist out there, I guess its mostly harmless I'm not sure I agree. If reporting like this funnels more young physicists into doing this kind of research, which has been going on for decades without making any successful experimental predictions, then I don't think it's harmless. Not only that, but this kind of reporting has a subtext: Science is the Authority. Even when Science tells you what seems like obvious nonsense. And that pernicious effect goes far beyond a few young physicists. That is not to say that there aren't scientific claims that seem highly counterintuitive to the lay person, but which are nevertheless true. There are. But those claims are nailed down by massive quantities of experimental evidence that matches the predictions of the models to many decimal places. The speculative claims discussed in this article have no evidence to support them. Big difference. But you'll never find that out by reading these kinds of articles.

random314 4y ago
Einstein's relativity was purely theoretical when it was accepted world wide based on abstract principles. So, your characterization of how modern physics works is completely wrong.
- pdonis 4y ago
  No, your claim regarding the historical facts is completely wrong. If by "relativity" you mean special relativity, nobody used it for anything when it was published. The first real use of it theoretically was to explain the Compton effect in 1921, based on experimental results. It took another decade or so for it to be routinely used, mainly due to its success in explaining the fine structure of atomic spectra and in developing quantum field theory. If you mean general relativity, the first event that could be said to have gotten it "accepted world wide" was the 1919 eclipse expeditions organized by Eddington, which confirmed the GR prediction of bending of light by the Sun. And even then acceptance of it was still limited (see below). Also, even before that, GR was known to correctly predict the extra precession of Mercury's perihelion, which could not be explained by Newtonian gravity. So that was a piece of evidence for GR that was known before it was published. Note that even after the 1919 eclipse expedition and the 1921 explanation of the Compton Effect, relativity was still considered too "out there" to justify a Nobel Prize; when Einstein got the prize in 1922 the Nobel committee specifically excluded relativity from the scientific work by Einstein that was the basis for it.

andirk 4y ago

Adding gloss to a topic without leaving the realm of truth can be helpful in inciting interest, as you mention. Similarly, Dr. Michael I. Jordan of UC Berkeley describes in no uncertain terms that the phrase "Artificial Intelligence" is misleading in the field of the same name [1]. He basically says our AI thus far is recommendation engines and a self driving car. Is the glossy, somewhat simplified discussion of quantum mechanics == gravity == anti-god particle also misleading? I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the 10th grade Algebra's imaginary number √-1 . [1] https://youtu.be/EYIKy_FM9x0?t=864 https://youtu.be/EYIKy_FM9x0?t=864

pas 4y ago
regarding √-1, the mystery is a bit simpler than with physics, because with math it is what it is, and there's no arguing about how real the math is :) that said, just as in physics we went from the concept of an atom (meaning an undividable whole) to a big ball of nuclear soup with protons and neutron and bound electrons raving around, then even further to noticing an even crazier confluence of chaos of quarks and gluons constantly churning in the nucleus, like that in math we went from integers to reals to complex numbers to saying hold my beer and "dividing number fields with irreducible polynomials" (see algebraic extension) and discovering all kinds of madness. in physics we used mightier and meaner matter smashers, in maths we used ... well, a similar amount of brute force of a certain kind, the kind that solved problems, rules of square roots be damned. and then it turns out that the rule was different all along, and congratulations now you have even more complicated numbers, the complex ones. just as in physics there's the always gnawing question of "okay, but what explains that small blip in the data?" there's the one in math about "okay, sure, that question is so simple-looking it's outright ridiculous/dumb, but how come nobody was able to answer it in decades/centuries? what if ...?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XCFQe2WVhw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XCFQe2WVhw

andrewflnr 4y ago

Vague, sure, but does physics have anything better to offer when it comes to quantum gravity? Granted I'm biased as a (lay) fan of ER=EPR. And I don't entirely disagree with you; the NYT is probably not helping here and maybe shouldn't have waded in.

adastra22 4y ago
There are lots of quantum gravity theories. Take your pick. The problem isn’t so much that we don’t know how to reconcile QM with GR, but that there are many ways to do it and we don’t know which is physical.
- andrewflnr 4y ago
  Yes, that's rather my point. No use in singling out ER=EPR in that respect.

WhitneyLand 4y ago

As someone with a physics background does this sound right? From the article: According to Einstein’s general relativity, the information content of a black hole or any three-dimensional space — your living room, say, or the whole universe — was limited to the number of bits that could be encoded on an imaginary surface surrounding it. I thought this was more according to the Bekenstein bound than GR.

pdonis 4y ago
> I thought this was more according to the Bekenstein bound than GR. It is. The article is most certainly not a good source from which to try to learn any actual physics.
- wrycoder 4y ago
  Overbye used to do better.

meltyness 4y ago

A talk came across my screen and a third of the way through a misleading and glossy description of QKD prompted me to stop watching and do something else with my time. I agree though that kind of optimism can be very motivational, which is great in an education system that is basically a water wheel of slapstick white gloves for you to stick your face in.