8 ms·
Using fluids to model inaccessible realms of the cosmos
- dumpsterdiver 3y ago[flagged]
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- Cthulhu_ 3y agoYou 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? [0] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Concern_troll https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Concern_troll [1] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions
- localtoast 3y agoAh, thanks for those links. Great stuff. I guffawed.
- Traubenfuchs 3y ago[flagged]
- darkclouds 3y agoWell I'm a buffoon guffawing at your assertion.
- denton-scratch 3y agoYou'd be wrong.
- slowmovintarget 3y agoYes. 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.
- Biganon 3y agoWhat a terrifying website. What a terrifying era.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dumpsterdiver 3y agoTrolling? 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.
- uoaei 3y agoI 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.
- dumpsterdiver 3y agoIt'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.
- Eumenes 3y agointeresting, a wiki for terminally online shock troops
- misja111 3y agoI must be missing something, but how is this achievement genderized, other than using the word 'she' here and there?
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- defrost 3y agoWhat genderization, do you mean using 'She' rather than 'He' in the title? It reads like an pop sci article on David Blair and his work on gravity save for the fact it's about Silke Weinfurtner and her work on black holes. If you're so easily "concerned" I suggest you don't read about (say) Steph Wehner and her work on quantum cryptography or rooting BSD kernels.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dumpsterdiver 3y agoJeez. I meant that the word "she" is in the title. It seemed unnecessary, that's all. Holy smokes.
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- uoaei 3y agoThe 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.
- defrost 3y agoThe 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. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2279240-carlo-rovellis-rebellious-past-and-how-it-made-him-a-better-scientist/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2279240-carlo-rovellis-...
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- hp6 3y agoI 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.
- agentgumshoe 3y agoBut if it said "he turns fluids into Black Holes and inflating universes" we wouldn't even be having this discussion... Shall we avoid gender altogether these days because it's too tricky not to go down moral rabbit holes?
- tgv 3y agoIt 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.
- tremon 3y agoThe 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.
- denton-scratch 3y agoI 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.
- sjcsjc 3y agoApparently, yes.
- white_dragon88 3y ago[dead]
- quickthrower2 3y agoI like this idea. You need bets like this to discover things, not everyone working on the same thing.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoCertainly it's a lot easier than trying to cultivate a real black hole in your lab.
- quickthrower2 3y agoWell I was thinking looking through telescopes and developing theories as the alternatives!
- uoaei 3y agoBit of an aside, but: > 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.)
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoWhat other approaches are there that wouldn't lead to a quantum theory of gravity?
- trhr 3y ago[flagged]
- quickthrower2 3y agoAre you hinting at infinitesimals?
- trhr 3y agoNo, 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.
- pbhjpbhj 3y agoTangentially related: 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.
- at_a_remove 3y agoAh, I had the guy who was the master of Helium-3. He had something like seven patents on different applications.
- OldGuyInTheClub 3y agoLiquid 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. https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.96.14.7760 https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.96.14.7760 "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."
- OldGuyInTheClub 3y ago
- acqbu 3y agoblack holes - I've seen a few cosmic wonders that leave me askew they gobble up matter with voracious delight sucking everything in, day or night
- white_dragon88 3y ago[flagged]
- fastneutron 3y agoFor a highly in-depth look at the theory behind this, I can recommend “The Universe in a Helium Droplet” by Volovik [1]. 1. https://academic.oup.com/book/11557 https://academic.oup.com/book/11557
- trhr 3y agoI took a bunch of mushrooms and had the same idea, but when I pitched it to my freshman Physics professor, he told me I should "take more physics." I thought he was insulting me, but apparently I would have made a decent physicist.
- Ygg2 3y agoThere is a chasm of difference between taking some shrooms and testing a black hole analogue.
- bowsamic 3y agoEven if this is supposed to be a joke, I don't get the connection between physics and drugs that the joke implies
- greazy 3y agoThere'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] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction#History https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction#Hi...
- bowsamic 3y agoMany 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. EDIT: honestly, looking at the user's other comment doesn't fill me with confidence https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36756514 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36756514
- stronglikedan 3y ago
- sparrowInHand 3y agoImagine a material capable to reflect gravity waves, amplifying it, creating a standing wave. A blackhole without mass, regarding the effects..
- amelius 3y agoCouldn't these experiments be done using computer simulations?
- 11101010001100 3y agoSure, you can also say we start with the ZFC axioms. QED. Calculations provide predictions, experiments provide verification.
- amelius 3y agoI mean, computational fluid dynamics is pretty mature now. And if for some reason it doesn't work here, then that would be nice to know. Besides, the experiments themselves are simulations.
- 11101010001100 3y agoI just spoke with an YC company. The CFD needed for their applications doesn't scale. There are plenty of reasons for experiments.
- mhh__ 3y agoCFD is actually really hard to get right. F1 teams for example constantly struggle getting their simulations to line up with their measurements.
- peter_d_sherman 3y ago>"...she has detected sound waves in fluids that resemble Hawking radiation..." [...] "If the wave isn’t too tall, then this wave doesn’t interact with other waves of different frequencies — you can try this in the bathtub. But if the amplitude gets high, then the different frequencies interact." Fascinating!
- OldGuyInTheClub 3y agoSixty Symbols did a video with Dr.Weinfurtner. Surprised it wasn't posted already! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOnoYQchHFw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOnoYQchHFw "The Black Hole Machine"