4 ms·

Oi. The great weakness of academics is the obsession with semantics. Debating the words used is a poor subsitute for exploring the concepts. The experimenters

Oi. The great weakness of academics is the obsession with semantics. Debating the words used is a poor subsitute for exploring the concepts. The experimenters are clear their ‘wormhole’ is a computational “hologram” of a one-dimensional wormhole. These operational words are the concept. This was a computational experiment designed to show something akin to ER=EPR, or the idea that entanglement is equivalent to a wormhole, an ER bridge. Its a fascinating line of inquiry into what makes the stuff of our universe, and hopefully a few laypeople get to learn about it because of their work. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ER_%3D_EPR https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ER_%3D_EPR This was never an experiment about the wormholes of science fiction, if that is how people read the headlines.

andreareina 4y ago
They simulated a toy model of a wormhole. They still have to compare it to a real one to verify their model holds.
pmichaud 4y ago
I don't think I agree that this is just semantics. I looked into it enough to realize it was just a simulation, but the headlines were all about how they had created a wormhole, very obviously because a headline like "researchers have created a video game of a wormhole" wouldn't have gotten clicks or whatever.
ablatt89 4y ago
Attention seeking seems a bit rampant these days. Quanta is generally a reliable source, but it's troubling to see even researchers either ignorantly given opinions on topics they know nothing about, or dishonestly inflate the content of a particular paper garnering interesting to further themselves into the limelight.
baxtr 4y ago
Maybe it’s is semantics. But look at how it is employed: not to transfer a well known concept into another domain to make things easier to understand for a broader audience. Instead they use it as as a clever marketing trick and click bait. Even we are now talking about it. If science is now about marketing it’s a clever thing to do. But maybe marketing tricks shouldn’t enter every field.

andreareina 4y ago

They simulated a toy model of a wormhole. They still have to compare it to a real one to verify their model holds.

pmichaud 4y ago

I don't think I agree that this is just semantics. I looked into it enough to realize it was just a simulation, but the headlines were all about how they had created a wormhole, very obviously because a headline like "researchers have created a video game of a wormhole" wouldn't have gotten clicks or whatever.

ablatt89 4y ago

Attention seeking seems a bit rampant these days. Quanta is generally a reliable source, but it's troubling to see even researchers either ignorantly given opinions on topics they know nothing about, or dishonestly inflate the content of a particular paper garnering interesting to further themselves into the limelight.

baxtr 4y ago

Maybe it’s is semantics. But look at how it is employed: not to transfer a well known concept into another domain to make things easier to understand for a broader audience. Instead they use it as as a clever marketing trick and click bait. Even we are now talking about it. If science is now about marketing it’s a clever thing to do. But maybe marketing tricks shouldn’t enter every field.