When I was in uni, I did a brief informal undergrad-level paper on modelling cosmological inflation using superfluid He-4. What I hadn't realised, and perhaps was supposed to discover, was that one of the unis [past] professors, Prof JF Allen, had worked in that field. As I read now I find that he actually was a co-discoverer of superfluid He-4.
The journal Nature describes him as "the last of a generation of independent-minded classical physicists". We knew him as "god" for his mystical presence on campus and his cartoon-God appearance, whispers followed him around the physics lounge. He also taught me QFT, or tried. It wasn't until after I graduated that I learnt the building really was named after him. I do wish that I had known to interview him about this field of modelling [cosmology] using superfluids.
Liquid helium 3 and 4 have been a fertile substrate for this kind of exploration. I often think that the lab scale experiments will figure it out before the ultracolliders.
This 1998 article summarizes the state of the field up to that time. The rotating cryostat they used in the experiments is a masterpiece of instrument design.
"Vortices in rotating superfluid 3 He" by Lounasmaa and Thuneberg
Scroll to the end for
"Superfluid 3 He in Cosmology
The topological objects in the order parameter field of super-
fluid 3 He, such as textural point defects, quantized vortex lines,
and solitons, are in many respects similar to monopoles,
strings, and domain walls in relativistic quantum field theories
(3, 4, 23, 24). In high-energy physics these objects are still
hypothetical, whereas in the case of superfluid 3 He they can be
observed experimentally. Here we discuss just one example: an
experiment modeling developments in the early universe. The
study (67, 68) involves creation of vortices by absorption of
neutrons in rotating superfluid 3 He-B."
"Field theory in superfluid 3He: What are the lessons for particle physics, gravity, and high-temperature superconductivity?"
I don't pretend to understand even a fraction of this but Figure 3 is a very nice Dictionary mapping the helium phenomena to the cosmological questions.
> But physicists seek the more fundamental, quantum theory of gravity that underlies Einstein’s picture; it’s this quantum gravity theory that governs extremes like the Big Bang and black holes. And one way to inch toward this complete theory is to study quantum fluctuations in the space-time fabric.
I'm uncomfortable with the implicit framing that quantum gravity is The One True Theory and we just need to figure out how to formalize it. I'm sure this comes from the author and not the researcher, maybe something was lost in translation from the technical to the colloquial, but nonetheless it is still inaccurate to say that there is any kind of certainty that this is the right path forward. (Ditto for dark matter and dark energy, though those could more accurately be described as lacks of models than models per se.)
My understanding is that quantum gravity is a gaping hole in our theoretical understanding of the universe, and until that hole is plugged, we have no hopes of finding a One True Theory. That's quite different from quantum gravity being The theory.
What I was trying to get at is that gravity may not even be quantized. The insistence that it act like the other three fundamental forces is a holdover from earlier interpretations of physics but in retrospect there's still no solid reason to assume it has to be quantum at all.
There is more focus of late on theories of "emergent gravity", i.e., that gravity is not a fundamental force. The most interesting one to me is so-called "entropic gravity", which also resolves the issues plaguing the theory of dark matter and gives credence to MOND. Such theories have been long derided by old-school physicists raised in the golden era of quantum mechanics (and their acolytes), but have surprisingly powerful explanatory power that other theories cannot achieve without tacking on seemingly arbitrary or else otherwise unmotivated factors. Dark matter especially has always been suspect to me, since even after all this time, it is defined as little more than "the gap between our models and observations" with no strong underpinnings that would explain its existence in satisfying ways.
I am not affiliated with this blog in any way but find the arguments compelling: https://tritonstation.com/
Can you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and definitely please not post in the flamewar style to HN? You've done that a lot in this thread and it's not what this site is for.
You could define the Big Bang to be at any value of t, i.e., pick t0 > 0. Such a shift changes nothing and won’t fix any singularities in the dynamics.
You, by definition, cannot. Our best science suggests that `t` ceases to be a linear value at t=0. It's why we define t=0 to be there.
The problem is the absurdity of the idea that `t` could ever cease to be a linear value. Causality is a fundamental truth. To lose the idea of "before" and "after" is to lose causality.
If your fundamental theorem of the universe requires you to forego causality, you should consider looking elsewhere.
Fair. I misstated my premise. "Find the math that allows zero to be treated like any other number, or, find the math that treats it like it's definitely the wrong answer."
Consistency is the key. What we have now is only locally consistent. You can break it into pieces with set theory, geometry, etc. You're never going to find a unifying equation in a version of mathematics where geometry and algebra don't mesh.
No, those are fine. Well, almost. They're not uniquely broken, at least.
Mathematics would have me believe "the sum of all positive integers" is a negative number. They can provide glorious proofs of that fact. When you insert the result into the physics equations, the equations work.
But the idea is, on its face, stupid. Any child would tell you as much. The equations only "work" on that premise because they're almost right.
But that's not a problem with infinity, it's a problem with something we're assuming when we go to write the proof in the first place. And whatever that problem is... it's almost certainly the thing stopping us from solving the Riemann hypothesis.
Goedel, Russell, and Frege proved from first principals that our understanding of basic arithmetic cannot be both complete and consistent. One or the other, but not both.
If children's arithmetic cannot be proven complete and consistent, what does that say about the sort of math used to define the universe?
Building upon a broken structure is how you get broken results.
This is like saying everyone who tripped on acid and ranted about mind body connection and oneness to the universe is now competition to Peter Singer. Coming up with the idea is only a small part of the problem. Actually pursuing it with rigor is another.
Your professor also told you to take more physics, so he did in fact suggest you could be a decent physicist?
in my experience, the rigorous pursuit feels like a hamster wheel
the real problem is that it moves very fast, so when I've tried jumping into this "wheel", I find it impossible to hold on on to it. I always fly out due to centrifugal forces
That only suggests you were reaching further than your grasp. To stretch the metaphore, knowledge is the strength of one's grasp and the edge of the wheel is the hardest to hold on to. Most start further in, where things are known and easier to grasp - gradually making their way to the edge over a decade(s) long journey. This goes for nearly all research fields.
Ideas are cheap and typically wrong. Proof is the only thing that matters. I am certain some human has already stated the right idea to unify QM and GR, but so what?
Turns out that centrifugal force "does exist" in side the rotating reference frame. As if, your looking down on the object rotating around a center, the only force there is centripetal pointing in and Inertia pointing tangent to the circle. However if you enter the reference frame of the object being flung around you lose the inertia term since your already the center of the system and then need a centrifugal term to make up for that.
So in reference to _being_ on a hamster wheel, the outward sensation could be attributed to a centrifugal apparent force.
There's a few instances in science where ideas were borne after the researcher took drugs. A good example is PCR assay.
> Mullis has credited his use of LSD as integral to his development of PCR: "Would I have invented PCR if I hadn't taken LSD? I seriously doubt it. I could sit on a DNA molecule and watch the polymers go by. I learnt that partly on psychedelic drugs."[86]
While I'm open to the idea that breakthroughs can come from unorthodox places, I don't think that Mullis is the best example. My highschool biology teacher had some negative opinions about the guy and claimed that it was an open secret that you do not invite him to speak at events, noble price not withstanding.
So, I looked him up. If anything my biology teacher was being polite.
EDIT: My opinion is that this is a case of a broken clock being right twice a day. The second article talks about his PCR breakthrough. It sounds like he was clever and lucky. But based on what else he seemed to have believed, I really don't think we should take his word on the LSD being the key.
I agree he's a terrible person but it is a good example of where drugs helped in discovery. The key point IMO is that he may not have discovered or invented PCR without drugs. But PCR would have been invented one way or another.
On a separate note, I find your main argument not at all helpful to the current thread. Terrible people can create and do amazing things. But it's still an a good example.
Many more ideas in science have been discovered sober than on drugs. In fact I would probably say it's one of the disciplines with the least drug use in my own experience. That's why I'm confused about what the connection is. I'm a physicist and I know very few colleagues who take drugs.
I don't know, man. The last time they tested my IQ, they wanted me to come back and take the test again, because I was "out of bounds" for the test they gave me. My parents refused, because none of us cared enough to spend another $800.
And I took a _lot_ of shrooms.
Unfortunately, I majored in Philosophy. So, I'll never find the right answer to life's great mysteries. I did get fairly good at pointing out the wrong ones, though.
The point is that some ideas may never be discovered without the use of mind expanding drugs, and some notable discoveries in physics have come from the use of mind expanding drugs, and possibly more than in other disciplines, so there is a notable link, if even in jest, between physicists and mind expanding drug use.
Yes but you can say this about literally any idea in any field ever. Surely arts and music have a much stronger connection with drugs than physics? In fact, we are on Hacker News, so surely software development has a far stronger connection. I'm just failing to see how physics is in any way especially connected to drugs compared to pretty much any other human activity. In fact, it seems almost the bottom of the list to me
In mathematics, there is a certain prestige in having a low Erdős number. Paul Erdős was famous for his (ab)use of amphetamines. The role which stimulants played in the sheer volume of papers he published over his life is up for debate.
"You shouldn't have mentioned the stuff about Benzedrine. It's not that you got it wrong. It's just that I don't want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics to think that they have to take drugs to succeed."
-Paul Erdős responding to the author of a 1987 Atlantic Monthly article profiling his work (as well as his use of benzedrine).
I think the issue is not with genderization but the choice of using it instead her name or affiliation (University of Nottingham) or country of residence (United Kingdom). Suggesting that "She Turns Fluids Into ‘Black Holes’ and ‘Inflating Universes’” is more “news worthy” than “Dr. Weinfurtner Turns Fluids Into ‘Black Holes’ and ‘Inflating Universes’” which imho is at least a little bit patronizing.
The phrase "[s]he turns fluids into black holes" could have come directly from some new-age bible. The only thing that made me think "maybe they're talking about a person" was seeing it featured on HN, so that was purely by context. For me, your suggested change isn't patronizing -- rather, it's an essential addition that upgrades the headline from content-free gibberish to an interest-piquing description.
It might also be one of the reasons why the assumption is veering towards "man" in headlines such as "professor turns fluids into black holes." When media go out of their way to stress that it concerns a woman, the default assumption for ungendered terms will remain male.
I thought "She" seemed odd too. I suspected it might be a sort of acronym or code-word, and when I started reading the article, that's what I was looking for an explanation of.
You are concern trolling [0] and "just asking questions" [1]; why is the "genderization of this alleged achievement" the thing you seem to focus on, instead of the actual content?
Trolling? Pardon me, but I am absolutely not. There may have been some misunderstanding, but I assure you that there was no intentional trolling happening on my part.
I don't think a profile of a single woman doing this study is any kind of proof that only women do this kind of study. Your premise and your reasoning are not aligned with reality.
It's clear to me now that the message I intended to send and the message that was received were very different. My original comment was made half in jest, along the lines of "I always knew my wife was mad, but now I have proof." The other half of my comment that was not meant to be humorous was simply acknowledging that similar jokes would likely not be told if circumstances were different.
Yes. It may not be a part of most native speakers' ordinary verbal vocabulary, but it's for darn sure part of nearly every native speaker's reading vocabulary.
The word "He" frequently appears in article titles about male physicists.
Do you comment about that also?
eg:
Carlo Rovelli’s rebellious past and how it made him a better scientist
For the last 30 years, Carlo Rovelli has been the source of some of the most intriguing ideas in fundamental physics, ranging across quantum physics and Einstein’s general relativity. This exclusive short film, "The Meaning of Meaning", gives us some insights into his rebellious past, and how that makes for good science.
I think it may seem a bit jarring to you only because it's not common, because there aren't so many women physicists and these sort of personal interest pieces aren't done for them so often. It's not necessarily some DEI flex by the author. Take a look at all the submissions to HN that begin with "He" [0] and meditate on how you feel about them.
I know I had the same reaction around that "The woman behind the first black hole image" story a couple years ago, but after watching news articles since then with a careful eye towards phrasing like "The man behind X" I realized it's just a normal phrasing that seemed jarring in the black hole case only because I wasn't used to hearing about the women behind something.
The article is literally about a woman. Journalism has become very much about character pieces, for better or worse. They are compelling to the average reader in ways that rote technicum is not. And Quanta is certainly aimed at the average reader.
When I was in uni, I did a brief informal undergrad-level paper on modelling cosmological inflation using superfluid He-4. What I hadn't realised, and perhaps was supposed to discover, was that one of the unis [past] professors, Prof JF Allen, had worked in that field. As I read now I find that he actually was a co-discoverer of superfluid He-4.
The journal Nature describes him as "the last of a generation of independent-minded classical physicists". We knew him as "god" for his mystical presence on campus and his cartoon-God appearance, whispers followed him around the physics lounge. He also taught me QFT, or tried. It wasn't until after I graduated that I learnt the building really was named after him. I do wish that I had known to interview him about this field of modelling [cosmology] using superfluids.