This naming-proposal couldn't possibly cause any problems down the line...
> They had worked out a way of running software on a classical computer that would mimic a quantum task.
When it comes to using a regular computer to mimic (read: fake) the execution of an exotic program/API for nonexistnet future hardware, I highly recommend the humorously titled talk: "Temporally Quaquaversal Virtual Nanomachine Programming In Multiple Topologically Connected Quantum-Relativistic Parallel Timespaces... Made Easy!" [0][1]
> This naming-proposal couldn't possibly cause any problems down the line...
Your worries are a bit late, there's already a huge amount of new age conspiracy bull about quantum healing with wave function collapse, microtubule alignment and biophotons - quality all-you-can-eat word salad buffet.
Charm, quark, colors, time crystals, holographs.. And now, magic. Don't worry Einstein, no spooky action at a distance here, it's just magical.
> The more non-Clifford gates you need to produce a quantum state, the more magical that state is. The group found that the particles were highly magical. ..They showed that magic gave space its springiness. Magic, in other words, is connected to space’s ability to bend.
At some point these physicists crossed over into a very specialized form of poetry, a game of language.
Is it measured in Thaum? (which, as everyone surely knows by now is the amount of magic needed to create one small white pigeon or three normal-sized billiard balls)
You mean post quantum, theoretical physics. Up to 19th and early 20th, physicists somehow knew how to name things. It is possible that the nature of the beast itself has changed and it attracts a different kind of mindsets ...
To be fair, that one came from an editor not a physicist; the physicist wanted to call their book «the goddamn particle», and it got censored/editorialized to «the god particle».
>In holographic theories, physicists may have traced the pliability of space-time to its quantum roots
...ah yes holography again. Not to say that all these insights from it are completely worthless, but unless we actually find a holographic dual of our universe instead of AdS spaces (which are the opposite of our universe if anything), this whole field is starting to feel more like a jobs program for mathematicians out of new ideas.
> this whole field is starting to feel more like a jobs program for mathematicians out of new ideas.
So sick of seeing phrases like this.
Science is not business. It is not about producing results that you personally think are important. It is understanding the nature of the universe for the sake of it.
> Is it possible to take any scientist talking about something they term as magic seriously?
Obviously. Because the fact that they use this word for something modernly scientific means that its meaning is as far from the commonfolk meaning of the word as possible. Magic doesn't mean anything sensible yet. So it's basically free real estate for something physical, especially something very foundational.
> a measure of quantumness known as “magic.”
This naming-proposal couldn't possibly cause any problems down the line...
> They had worked out a way of running software on a classical computer that would mimic a quantum task.
When it comes to using a regular computer to mimic (read: fake) the execution of an exotic program/API for nonexistnet future hardware, I highly recommend the humorously titled talk: "Temporally Quaquaversal Virtual Nanomachine Programming In Multiple Topologically Connected Quantum-Relativistic Parallel Timespaces... Made Easy!" [0][1]
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzTjPx4NIiM
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpInOI4o2LY
> This naming-proposal couldn't possibly cause any problems down the line...
Your worries are a bit late, there's already a huge amount of new age conspiracy bull about quantum healing with wave function collapse, microtubule alignment and biophotons - quality all-you-can-eat word salad buffet.
Don't underestimate the capacity for the problem to get significantly worse.
Blame Roger Penrose for the microtubule bullshit. Ironically, he's the opposite of new age, dude won a Nobel prize.
Charm, quark, colors, time crystals, holographs.. And now, magic. Don't worry Einstein, no spooky action at a distance here, it's just magical.
> The more non-Clifford gates you need to produce a quantum state, the more magical that state is. The group found that the particles were highly magical. ..They showed that magic gave space its springiness. Magic, in other words, is connected to space’s ability to bend.
At some point these physicists crossed over into a very specialized form of poetry, a game of language.
Is it measured in Thaum? (which, as everyone surely knows by now is the amount of magic needed to create one small white pigeon or three normal-sized billiard balls)
You can just call it second stabilizer Rényi entropy or non-stabilizerness if you find "magic" strange and prose is more your flavor than poetry.
Don't forget snap, crackle and pop, and quantum teleportation.
Physicists get a failing grade for naming things.
You mean post quantum, theoretical physics. Up to 19th and early 20th, physicists somehow knew how to name things. It is possible that the nature of the beast itself has changed and it attracts a different kind of mindsets ...
I can sort of appreciate these shenanigans as short-lived common room humor, but I find it obnoxious to put it in the official terminology.
It's bad enough all the corporations trying to steal perfectly active words for their brand names or products.
Ghosts are also a thing in quantum field theory
And slavery, unfortunately. (Slave variables, slave bosons, etc.)
we had "god particle" too …
To be fair, that one came from an editor not a physicist; the physicist wanted to call their book «the goddamn particle», and it got censored/editorialized to «the god particle».
Mathematicians shouldn’t be allowed to name anything, it’s beyond ridiculous
In absolute, those are irrevocably pliable scientific facts.
That is an incredibly unfortunate term to use for the phenomenon.
Indeed. Now to examine things through that particular lens could be described as 'magical thinking'
>In holographic theories, physicists may have traced the pliability of space-time to its quantum roots
...ah yes holography again. Not to say that all these insights from it are completely worthless, but unless we actually find a holographic dual of our universe instead of AdS spaces (which are the opposite of our universe if anything), this whole field is starting to feel more like a jobs program for mathematicians out of new ideas.
> this whole field is starting to feel more like a jobs program for mathematicians out of new ideas.
So sick of seeing phrases like this.
Science is not business. It is not about producing results that you personally think are important. It is understanding the nature of the universe for the sake of it.
I gotta say every aspect of this headline reads like bullshit. Unfortunately
Not just the headline. Is it possible to take any scientist talking about something they term as magic seriously?
> Is it possible to take any scientist talking about something they term as magic seriously?
Obviously. Because the fact that they use this word for something modernly scientific means that its meaning is as far from the commonfolk meaning of the word as possible. Magic doesn't mean anything sensible yet. So it's basically free real estate for something physical, especially something very foundational.