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I find that cases like this represent one of the biggest problems in today’s research: once someone falsifies something, an entire branch of research gets cut o

I find that cases like this represent one of the biggest problems in today’s research: once someone falsifies something, an entire branch of research gets cut off completely as nobody wants to pursue that path anymore, understandably. But if the “proof” is in fact wrong, then you actually just hid a big part of the research surface to everybody. And usually that’s also where progress is made: when, despite proof, research is pursued because of a gut feeling. Stay skeptic!

catigula 1y ago
Quantum computing research feels like one of those things whose greatest effort would likely be classified research. In fact, you could argue the article in the OP looks like well-poisoning based on the author's conclusions.
terminalbraid 1y ago
What was wrong with the proof in this case? The paper explicitly states and acknowledges the issue raised by this article before the author was aware of it. The author of the article just contends that it is an experimental issue to set up unentangled initial states which are required for the experiment, and indeed someone who was going to perform the experiment needs to convincing demonstrate the assumptions are met. The author even admits this "is better than doing no test at all".
- moi2388 1y ago
  Nothing, except the perception of what was said and what was actually said. (The same happend to Bells inequality actually) “ (…) you can just mimic the behavior of complex numbers using pairs of real numbers (and appropriately tweaked definitions of operations). (…) What Renou et al are actually claiming is that if you start with quantum mechanics, and then remove all operations and states involving non-real numbers, and then try to emulate what was lost using what remains, you will fail in an experimentally detectable way” Meaning it’s actually totally possible to only use reals to encode the complex Numbers, but not to also remove all operators which do the same things as the complex numbers would.
  - j16sdiz 1y ago
    "the math breaks if you just remove the math" "actually you can replace with something equivalent" "i said just remove the math, not replacing it" so, what's the news?
gus_massa 1y ago
Nobody takes what is published at face value [1], the researchers read and reproduce the result. The reproduction is never published. If it's a positive result, the idea is to add a tweak and get a free paper, or combine with another technique and get a free paper, or copy the same idea to another area and get a free paper, or ... For negative results, it's more difficult, but if someone is getting a promising results, they will not just drop whatever they are doing because some random said it's impossible. It's also a matter of reputation. Everyone knows everyone and have read a few of the previous papers (or papers of the advisor/coworker/whatever). If the previous papers were good, it's a good signal to take a look at the new result. If the previous papers were dubious, you skim it in case there is something interesting, but may just ignore it. [1] Perhaps the exception are medical trials, but they have a lot of rules and paperwork to avoid lying, error, misrepresentations and other nasty stuff. Anyway, after reading a lot of ivermectin preprints during peak pandemic, I'm not so sure.
- moktonar 1y ago
  Sure, but if the result is convincing enough, it might linger for a long time before someone finds a corner case where it doesn’t hold. For these reasons I think it would be better to have a different approach.
  - gus_massa 1y ago
    That's a hard problem. There is finite amount of money, so it's better to use it for promising research instead of potencial crackpots. Researchers have a finite amount of time, so it's better to focus on promising research lines instead of potencial dead ends. I'm not sure how to solve it, that avoids wasting money and time on flat earth research. (I think the researcher time is more critical. If 10% of the money is wasted, nobody would care, some research flops anyway. If someone wasted 5 years doing flat earth research, it's difficult to get back. (I'd ask x5 of the money in exchange of the reputation damage.))
    - moktonar 1y ago
      You solve it by staying skeptic! :)

catigula 1y ago

Quantum computing research feels like one of those things whose greatest effort would likely be classified research. In fact, you could argue the article in the OP looks like well-poisoning based on the author's conclusions.

terminalbraid 1y ago

What was wrong with the proof in this case? The paper explicitly states and acknowledges the issue raised by this article before the author was aware of it. The author of the article just contends that it is an experimental issue to set up unentangled initial states which are required for the experiment, and indeed someone who was going to perform the experiment needs to convincing demonstrate the assumptions are met. The author even admits this "is better than doing no test at all".

moi2388 1y ago
Nothing, except the perception of what was said and what was actually said. (The same happend to Bells inequality actually) “ (…) you can just mimic the behavior of complex numbers using pairs of real numbers (and appropriately tweaked definitions of operations). (…) What Renou et al are actually claiming is that if you start with quantum mechanics, and then remove all operations and states involving non-real numbers, and then try to emulate what was lost using what remains, you will fail in an experimentally detectable way” Meaning it’s actually totally possible to only use reals to encode the complex Numbers, but not to also remove all operators which do the same things as the complex numbers would.
- j16sdiz 1y ago
  "the math breaks if you just remove the math" "actually you can replace with something equivalent" "i said just remove the math, not replacing it" so, what's the news?

gus_massa 1y ago

Nobody takes what is published at face value [1], the researchers read and reproduce the result. The reproduction is never published. If it's a positive result, the idea is to add a tweak and get a free paper, or combine with another technique and get a free paper, or copy the same idea to another area and get a free paper, or ... For negative results, it's more difficult, but if someone is getting a promising results, they will not just drop whatever they are doing because some random said it's impossible. It's also a matter of reputation. Everyone knows everyone and have read a few of the previous papers (or papers of the advisor/coworker/whatever). If the previous papers were good, it's a good signal to take a look at the new result. If the previous papers were dubious, you skim it in case there is something interesting, but may just ignore it. [1] Perhaps the exception are medical trials, but they have a lot of rules and paperwork to avoid lying, error, misrepresentations and other nasty stuff. Anyway, after reading a lot of ivermectin preprints during peak pandemic, I'm not so sure.

moktonar 1y ago
Sure, but if the result is convincing enough, it might linger for a long time before someone finds a corner case where it doesn’t hold. For these reasons I think it would be better to have a different approach.
- gus_massa 1y ago
  That's a hard problem. There is finite amount of money, so it's better to use it for promising research instead of potencial crackpots. Researchers have a finite amount of time, so it's better to focus on promising research lines instead of potencial dead ends. I'm not sure how to solve it, that avoids wasting money and time on flat earth research. (I think the researcher time is more critical. If 10% of the money is wasted, nobody would care, some research flops anyway. If someone wasted 5 years doing flat earth research, it's difficult to get back. (I'd ask x5 of the money in exchange of the reputation damage.))
  - moktonar 1y ago
    You solve it by staying skeptic! :)