by kukx on 12/2/22, 9:47 AM with 70 comments
by andyjohnson0 on 12/2/22, 10:39 AM
> "No, scientists haven’t created a wormhole using a quantum computer. They haven’t even simulated one. They simulated some aspects of wormhole dynamics under the crucial assumption that the holographic correspondence of the Sachdev–Ye–Kitaev model holds."
Quanta publishes great, detailed articles - but it's ultimately a general readership magazine, not an academic journal. I seriously doubt that many of it's readers have sufficiently deep knowledge of QC to properly understand the Sachdev–Ye–Kitaev model. Whatever that is.
Edit: Just to be clear, I'm not disputing that the Quanta article is factually deficient - although I don't have the relevant specialist knowledge to understand why. I am disputing that this marks the "death" of the magazine.
by okintheory on 12/2/22, 12:21 PM
Perhaps surprisingly, NYTimes did better this time: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/30/science/physics-wormhole-...
They quote Scott Aaronson:
“The most important thing I’d want New York Times readers to understand is this,” Scott Aaronson, a quantum computing expert at the University of Texas in Austin, wrote in an email. “If this experiment has brought a wormhole into actual physical existence, then a strong case could be made that you, too, bring a wormhole into actual physical existence every time you sketch one with pen and paper.”
by iNic on 12/2/22, 12:09 PM
by college_physics on 12/2/22, 11:27 AM
The net result of all this ad-driven virality madness is the degradation of trust in obscure but important societal contracts: 1) that academics at the cutting edge of human knowledge can self-regulate through peer-review not only the integrity of a piece of work (not an obvious issue in this case) but can also place its importance and relevance against the entire body of prior knowledge and 2) that journalists disseminating scientific / technical information can act as a check and balance to remedy any deficiencies in 1) instead of amplifying and aggravating them
It feels like we have entered a downward spiral of ever more shrill claims competing for attention in world crushed by low-quality information overload.
by mjburgess on 12/2/22, 10:58 AM
I read it in its entirety to see if there was any justification for its write up. As with all tabloid journalism, the caveats are at the end where you find out the "bridge principle" from QC-to-Wormhole requires assumptions that are non-physical.
Everyone is well aware that non-physical assumptions to the equations of physics can produce arbitrary magical effects (eg., perpetual motion, etc.).
The whole structure of the article was something I'd expect from "tabloid science" and I expect Quanta will get a lot of push back from it; and hopefully not do it again.
by mellosouls on 12/2/22, 10:45 AM
I'm not sure if they've become more clickbaity or less discriminating, or if it's just me moving on. I'm guessing from the article - however ranty - it's not my imagination.
by sandgiant on 12/2/22, 11:36 AM
Original title (dec 1.): "Physicists Create a Wormhole Using a Quantum Computer" [1]
Current title (dec 2.): "Physicists Create a Holographic Wormhole Using a Quantum Computer" [2]
[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20221201021130/https://www.quant...
[2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20221202022713/https://www.quant...
by prof-dr-ir on 12/2/22, 11:20 AM
If we are allowed to base our opinion of a publication on one article, should I declare that Mateus Araújo's blog is dead to me?
by bowsamic on 12/2/22, 10:47 AM
Personally, I think it comes from a deep lack within a lot of humans now: they are scared of the future and bored of the present. They want to go to Mars or live out their sci-fi dreams, because they do not have any meaning right now. I won't speculate on the reasons for this, because I'm sure there are many, but the end result is that they are desperate for crazy sounding physics discoveries, because it placates their desire for extreme technological progression. Technology and science have become almost like a God, something people don't understand but that they have faith that it will elevate humanity to a point beyond its current, seemingly stale, state. Of course, where there is a desire for that, media companies will try to fulfil it.
by 323 on 12/2/22, 12:18 PM
Because the only way to accurately talk about quantum physics is to show the math and only talk about that. The famous "shut up and calculate".
You can't have it both ways, you either accept gross misrepresentations in the popular science press, or you just don't have popular science press.
by zachf on 12/2/22, 12:07 PM
And AdS/CFT is genuinely fascinating. It’s a type of theoretical construct that’s quite unique in the history of physics. So it’s very hard to talk about it in English sometimes! That’s partly what happened in this Quanta article. AdS/CFT asserts an equality between two very different systems (here, the quantum system is identified with the wormhole) in an extremely complex and nonlinear way. Does this mean that the quantum system is a wormhole? It’s a harder question than it appears on the surface.
by sigmoid10 on 12/2/22, 11:06 AM
Funny how this is true for basically all of science and yet so many popsci authors get away with it, because the vast majority of the audience will not be experts in the field. If you want the true story you'll always have to read the original paper (though sometimes even Nature lets bs slip through) and absolutely ignore the common media articles about it. Complaining that articles for the masses are not adequate recitations of real research is like complaining that water is wet. It's kind of the whole deal. This stuff is supposed to sound intriguing and generate clicks, not push the research itself ahead or inform real experts.
by aortega on 12/2/22, 11:09 AM
IMHO Quanta is far from the most respectable source of science news, since their articles tend to be very sensationalist, but in this case Quanta is not to blame, as the article it was published in Nature, but publications in big magazines are becoming more and more political, and less about real science.
by nyc111 on 12/2/22, 10:46 AM
These physicists assume a universe with nothing in it, then populate it with physicists and quantum computers and wormholes.
This is like claiming to have the most beatiful differential equations that explain perfectly the weather on earth. You say "ok, let's test these beautiful equations." But it turns out that the equations so beautiful to look at have no perfect solutions. So you need to make absurdly symmetrical assumptions to arrive at a usable solution, like assuming no atmosphere. Then, with no atmosphere your equations explains the earth's atmosphere perfectly well. With beautiful mathematical gimmicks, of course. With an assumption of a universe with nothing in it your equations explain everything in that universe with nothing in it.
Physics is neo-scholasticism powered by the marketing skills of the practitioners. This episode about wormholes proves the corruption of academic physics.
by rwoerz on 12/2/22, 1:03 PM
by karmakaze on 12/2/22, 7:37 PM
by yogsototh on 12/2/22, 11:08 AM
The positive side effect is that I am reading scientific articles more often since I'm doing this.
by raverbashing on 12/2/22, 11:21 AM
Seems like it went much more clickbait than the original article. Nobody reading QM would take that headline literally.
Talk about an overreaction.
by pera on 12/2/22, 12:01 PM
This is exactly how I interpreted that part of the video [1], and it makes me feel sad because Quanta is the only kinda pop-science magazine I enjoy reading.
As a lay parson, when it comes to quantum mechanics I have to use my own set of heuristics to identify quackery: this Quanta's video checks almost all my indicators of low quality quantum woo - I don't like to say this about someone's else work but just the aesthetics reminds me to pseudo-scientific documentaries.
by nickdothutton on 12/2/22, 12:11 PM
by jstx1 on 12/2/22, 11:59 AM
by xrayarx on 12/2/22, 10:54 AM
by lysecret on 12/2/22, 11:47 AM
by talkingtab on 12/2/22, 12:45 PM
If advertising is your business model, then you can make more money with click-baitization. Here's looking at you WAPO and NYT.
If, with good reason, we cannot trust the supposed sources of good information, even HN, then our ability to build common understandings and actions is destroyed. Why, it is almost like our political system would be destroyed.
If you want to destroy an ant colony, the simplest method is just to prevent interfere with the mechanisms they use to collaborate. Single ants, even mobs of ants cannot survive. Of course we are not ants and we can survive even when our systems of collaboration are destroyed.
(fixed phrasing in edit)
by NotYourLawyer on 12/2/22, 1:02 PM
See also the Gell-Mann amnesia effect: https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2021/01/18/gell-mann-amnesia/
by dandanua on 12/2/22, 11:43 AM
Though, it seems in this case some scientists who pushed the narrative were dishonest too.
by ilitirit on 12/2/22, 10:44 AM
I'll be honest. I found it very hard to read beyond this line. I powered through though.
Here's the tldr: It's a rant about details in one specific article.