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Quantum physicists explained earth’s oscillating weather patterns
- changoplatanero 3y agoThe explanation is that there seems to be a mathematical parallel between some wave equation used in quantum physics and the wave equation used in studying weather patterns.
- amelius 3y agoAren't quantum effects supposed to disappear in the macroscopic world? How is this explained?
- dekhn 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreasonable_Effectiveness_of_Mathematics_in_the_Natural_Sciences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreasonable_Effectiveness...
- stevenwoo 3y agoNot an explanation but the scientist who recognized the analogy of the quantum effect was also a physicist, seeing the parallel between particle movement and the fluid flow along the earth.Then another physicist was able to tweak Maxwell-Chern-Simons equations describing quantum particle movement and show they also applied to fluid flow topologies. It's not explained at all why this is so.
- dekhn 3y agoSee https://news.mit.edu/2013/when-fluid-dynamics-mimic-quantum-mechanics-0729 https://news.mit.edu/2013/when-fluid-dynamics-mimic-quantum-... https://news.mit.edu/2014/fluid-systems-quantum-mechanics-0912 https://news.mit.edu/2014/fluid-systems-quantum-mechanics-09... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrodynamic_quantum_analogs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrodynamic_quantum_analogs My favorite is the images in https://thales.mit.edu/bush/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Bush-AnnRev2015.pdf https://thales.mit.edu/bush/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Bush-... of their experimental setup; more details in Harris's thesis: https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/99068 https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/99068
- fnordpiglet 3y agoThere are a lot of these things. You can explain water flow using V=IR. A simpler but salient demonstration of how these things can happen https://youtu.be/Z_s3TmYQAuc https://youtu.be/Z_s3TmYQAuc
- lisper 3y agoJust because two phenomena are described by similar equations doesn't mean they are driven by the same physical mechanism. Wave equations are ubiquitous in physics. Sound waves. Water waves. There is no connection between any of these and QM.
- akasakahakada 3y agoSo wave function is not a part of QM?
- sidlls 3y agoIt’s more that wave functions are ubiquitous in all areas of physics. It generally falls out of the fact that we can model tons of stuff with second order differential equations, which often result in models that have oscillator/wave-like behaviors
- mannykannot 3y agoYou are mixing up two different (but related) terms. The wave equation is a second-order partial differential equation which has some solutions in the form of waves. A QM wave function is a particular case of a wave equation, yielding a probability amplitude. One significant application of the wave equation in pre-quantum physics occurred when Maxwell was able to derive, from the electromagnetic theory he was developing, a wave equation having solutions in which electromagnetic waves propagate at the speed of light.
- aeternum 3y agoFirst order differential equations generally govern diffusion where energy spreads out over an area. Second order are often waves where energy propagates but does not diffuse. Is pretty much everything described by those two classes? Any third-order differential equations in physics?
- defrost 3y agoGood question. First & second order covers most cases, third order applications include things with 'jerk', sticky flows through small channels, .. There are other examples offered here: https://www.researchgate.net/post/Are_there_examples_of_third-order_linear_differential_equations_in_physics_or_applied_mathematics https://www.researchgate.net/post/Are_there_examples_of_thir... https://www.quora.com/Why-dont-differential-equations-of-physics-go-beyond-the-second-order https://www.quora.com/Why-dont-differential-equations-of-phy... https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/2167292/are-there-examples-of-third-or-higher-order-linear-differential-equations-in-p https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/2167292/are-there-e...
- blueprint 3y agoQuantum effects certainly do not disappear at macro scale. Everything at every scale aside from gravity is directly explained by quantum effects. The reason you don't see many weird things except in certain circumstances is related to 1. decoherence and 2. the wavelength that matter has. But everything is quantum even if you don't see weirdness. Certainty of probability and other "non-quantum" effects still fall within QM. For examples of macro scale quantum effects, see e.g. the Casimir effect and the HBT experiment aka photon bunching. There are many of them and scale doesn't really enter into it whatsoever. The key factor that underlies your question mainly is entanglement.
- romusha 3y agoWhen you put it that way, the "magic" disappears. Isn't this what category theory seeks? Relationship between distant/different mathematical structures? Whether this equation belongs to the same class with another even though they explain different physics?
- ripperoni 3y agoWhile it is correct, this oversimplifies the point. The finding was that certain wheather patterns can be modelled better than before by using a quantum physics equation. To further the point: The model of this quantum physics equation is also useful for quantum computers built with superconducting materials. Underlying is the question though, why does this equation apply to the earths wheather? There seem to be parallels in the quantum and "macro" model, like windings of electron and wheather currents. Maybe the right view to modeling the earth is about dynamics as much as it is about topoligical phenomenons. After all, topology is used for solving gravitational problems, too. Then why can the earth can be treated as a topoligical insulator and what implications does this have? Can we learn something from it that can be applied to other wheather phenomenons? Or maybe even to the earths core?
- MikePlacid 3y ago> why can the earth can be treated as a topoligical insulator I am missing something here. Topology is a field of mathematics that studies the properties of objects that do not change under continuous deformations. So before asking why can Earth be treated as a topological something - one should specify what topology he is looking at, that is what continuous deformations of Earth he is talking about. So - what continuous deformations of Earth are you talking about?
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- zornthewise 3y ago[dead]
- kergonath 3y agoThat’s a culture difference issue. A topological insulator is a kind of material with specific properties (heavily simplified, that its inside is an electric insulator and its surface is an electric conductor). That’s where the topological aspect comes from. It has nothing to do with topology in mathematics except the name.
- jovial_cavalier 3y ago[flagged]
- ars 3y agoYou want to ban what is probably the best layman-scientific publication on the internet? Whatever for?
- jovial_cavalier 3y agoI have not seen a high quality article from them, perhaps ever.
- pierat 3y ago[flagged]
- plaguepilled 3y agoYou're being downvoted for not liking Quanta, but if your original point was that Quanta is not a good reporter, you're right. They frequently make subtle but impactful misinterpretations, or more outrageous redirections, such as the Quantum Gravity fiasco from earlier this year. To excuse that is to participate in Gell Man amnesia, in my view.
- ars 3y agoNo, he's being downvoted for just wanting a "ban" with zero reasoning. If he had wrote it like you are there might be discussion and disagreement with him, but not the flagging that he got.
- plaguepilled 3y agoIt's arguably obvious to those with relevant training, so perhaps he didn't realise justification was needed.
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- miika 3y agoAs above, so below?
- photochemsyn 3y agoThe El Nino pattern is not an oscillation... it is a fluctuation. Nobody has ever been able to predict the next El Nino based on the historical record. That's typical of fluctuations driven by non-linear phenomena. These are systems that display sensitive depenence to initial condition. Even a trivial research effort should have revealed this. Go read Edward Lorenz 1995 Essence of Chaos. https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295975146/the-essence-of-chaos/ https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295975146/the-essence-of-ch... This is really embarrassingly ignorant and incorrect. Classic case of experts in one field having no idea of what's been going on in another field for decades and so making fools of themselves.
- kergonath 3y agoThat is par for the course for this specific publication. I wish heir articles did not appear as often here; most of the time they do not really deserve more than an eye roll.
- MattPalmer1086 3y agoThe article isn't about El Nino though, it is mentioned only twice. One mention is the El Nino Southern Oscillation which actually is the accepted term for it. Honestly, Quanta doesn't get everything right, but it generally has the best lay scientific articles I have found. Where else have you found that is better?
- futurisold 3y agoThere's nautil.us too.
- gandalfgreybeer 3y agoI’ve only taken introductory meteorology courses but I remember ENSO [1] (which uses the term oscillations). Maybe that’s what they’re referring to? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Niño–Southern_Oscillation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Niño–Southern_Oscillation
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- fractallyte 3y agoThat header animation in the article looks just like Jupiter! A gas giant with similarly swirly patterns.
- thumbuddy 3y agoOh man they are getting closer. Cool:)
- ElMocambo_x4 3y agoWould a knowledgeable person be able to explain the following to a rookie: if the quantum physics equation describe a reality (or "phenomenons") which cannot be comprehended in the non-quantic reality (ie. classical physics), how can there be common patterns in both realities where equations from one realm would somehow still match patterns in the other realm ?
- jncfhnb 3y agoYour premise doesn’t really make sense. But in general there is no reason that a pattern cannot apply to two unrelated systems.
- gus_massa 3y agoVery late reply. I hope you see it... Some problems need all que quirks of quantum mechanics, but other can be simplified and you get a simplified equation. For example the electrons moving inside a very pure and very cold conductor are weird but if you have a normal conductor at room temperature, you can use the usual equation V=I*R to calculate the current. The simplified equation V=I*R is not 100% exact, probably only 99.99999999999% so everyone use it. The same equation can be used to calculate flux of water inside tubes, when the speed of the water is low. You must replace the voltage V with the pressure P, and other similar replacements. When the speed is high, you get more complicated equations, but in some cases the simplified equation is good enough. The idea is that in some conditions, both system can be approximated with a simplified equation, in spite under the hood they are very different.