The Amplituhedron - Universe's Mother Crystal

[Vuitton]

https://www.simonsfoundation.org/qua...antum-physics/

The article is pretty lengthy but here is a small chunk of it:

The amplituhedron, a newly discovered mathematical object resembling a multifaceted jewel in higher dimensions. Encoded in its volume are the most basic features of reality that can be calculated — the probabilities of outcomes of particle interactions.

Physicists have discovered a jewel-like geometric object that dramatically simplifies calculations of particle interactions and challenges the notion that space and time are fundamental components of reality.

“This is completely new and very much simpler than anything that has been done before,” said Andrew Hodges, a mathematical physicist at Oxford University who has been following the work.

The revelation that particle interactions, the most basic events in nature, may be consequences of geometry significantly advances a decades-long effort to reformulate quantum field theory, the body of laws describing elementary particles and their interactions. Interactions that were previously calculated with mathematical formulas thousands of terms long can now be described by computing the volume of the corresponding jewel-like “amplituhedron,” which yields an equivalent one-term expression.

“The degree of efficiency is mind-boggling,” said Jacob Bourjaily, a theoretical physicist at Harvard University and one of the researchers who developed the new idea. “You can easily do, on paper, computations that were infeasible even with a computer before.”

The new geometric version of quantum field theory could also facilitate the search for a theory of quantum gravity that would seamlessly connect the large- and small-scale pictures of the universe. Attempts thus far to incorporate gravity into the laws of physics at the quantum scale have run up against nonsensical infinities and deep paradoxes. The amplituhedron, or a similar geometric object, could help by removing two deeply rooted principles of physics: locality and unitarity.

“Both are hard-wired in the usual way we think about things,” said Nima Arkani-Hamed, a professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., and the lead author of the new work, which he is presenting in talks and in a forthcoming paper. “Both are suspect.”

Locality is the notion that particles can interact only from adjoining positions in space and time. And unitarity holds that the probabilities of all possible outcomes of a quantum mechanical interaction must add up to one. The concepts are the central pillars of quantum field theory in its original form, but in certain situations involving gravity, both break down, suggesting neither is a fundamental aspect of nature.

In keeping with this idea, the new geometric approach to particle interactions removes locality and unitarity from its starting assumptions. The amplituhedron is not built out of space-time and probabilities; these properties merely arise as consequences of the jewel’s geometry. The usual picture of space and time, and particles moving around in them, is a construct.

“It’s a better formulation that makes you think about everything in a completely different way,” said David Skinner, a theoretical physicist at Cambridge University.

The amplituhedron itself does not describe gravity. But Arkani-Hamed and his collaborators think there might be a related geometric object that does. Its properties would make it clear why particles appear to exist, and why they appear to move in three dimensions of space and to change over time.

Because “we know that ultimately, we need to find a theory that doesn’t have” unitarity and locality, Bourjaily said, “it’s a starting point to ultimately describing a quantum theory of gravity.”

Clunky Machinery

The amplituhedron looks like an intricate, multifaceted jewel in higher dimensions. Encoded in its volume are the most basic features of reality that can be calculated, “scattering amplitudes,” which represent the likelihood that a certain set of particles will turn into certain other particles upon colliding. These numbers are what particle physicists calculate and test to high precision at particle accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.

...

Looks like FFXIV's Arcanists are just quantum physicists.

[BaneTheBrawler]

Nah, SE

[ringthree]

That is wicked cool. Gotta read the whole article sometime.

[Callisto]

math for acid trips

[Silenka]

This sounds like a big fucking deal. Like, the next step we had to take to get to the next level of technology big fucking deal. That's what the article makes it sound like though. But I can't math, so I have no idea how I should be reading between the lines here.

[Jaybar]

This sounds like a big fucking deal. Like, the next step we had to take to get to the next level of technology big fucking deal. That's what the article makes it sound like though. But I can't math, so I have no idea how I should be reading between the lines here.

That's because you are thinking in 2D

[ringthree]

This sounds like a big fucking deal. Like, the next step we had to take to get to the next level of technology big fucking deal. That's what the article makes it sound like though. But I can't math, so I have no idea how I should be reading between the lines here.

I am no scientist, but I think they are suggesting this is a way to bridge the gap between regular physics and quantum physics. And that the bridge is actually much less complex than we believed it is. Instead of finding more forces to explain small variations in observations, it is attempting to explain everything including the forces as part of a greater whole.

So that was vague and obtuse, but yeah, if it is correct then it's a big fucking deal.

[Quicklet]

This is being incredibly overhyped. It's a specialized math tool for a very abstracted model, and the people behind it are very good at selling what they do in a very sexy way. It's way too early to say that this is anything that's going to "revolutionize" anything. Call me when this gets applied to something useful.

[Byrthnoth]

This is being incredibly overhyped. It's a specialized math tool for a very abstracted model, and the people behind it are very good at selling what they do in a very sexy way. It's way too early to say that this is anything that's going to "revolutionize" anything. Call me when this gets applied to something useful.

This is the story of science.

50 people that are bad at PR work on something for 20 years and then one guy who is good at PR comes along, makes a minor advancement, and takes it to the popular press with tales of how it's going to change society. Whatever though. Those people deserve a lot of thanks for sustaining funding rates.

[Quicklet]

Those people deserve a lot of thanks for sustaining funding rates.

These people are doing serious long-term damage to funding, because when their grandiose claims turn out to be overblown, the people in charge of funding tighten their purses. There's a reason string theory / particle positions are drying up in favor of condensed matter and cosmology.

[Takedown3]

reminds me of the hypercube, what a great movie series