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A wormhole simulation on some kind of a quantum computer


geordief

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https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04201-6

"Did physicists create a wormhole in a quantum computer?"

 

I was wondering what anyone here makes of this latest news as published today in Nature?

 

Did they just simulate the transfer of information  or did it really happen (both?)

 

How might this affect the search for a theory of quantum gravity?

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The original claim is not that physicists have created a wormhole in a quantum computer, but that they may have devised a valid simulation algorithm for a wormhole with the help of a quantum computer. Building a quantum computer that runs this algorithm is another matter.

Headlines truly are the plastic surgery of information.

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Ugh. Quanta Magazine goes even further.

Quote

Physicists Create a Holographic Wormhole Using a Quantum Computer

The unprecedented experiment explores the possibility that space-time somehow emerges from quantum information, even as the work’s interpretation remains disputed.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-create-a-wormhole-using-a-quantum-computer-20221130/

 

 

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Peter Woit shows the emperor  has no clothes:

Quote

The claim that “Physicists Create a Wormhole” is just complete bullshit, with the huge campaign to mislead the public about this a disgrace, highly unhelpful for the credibility of physics research in particular and science in general.

From 'Not even wrong'.

And a citation in Peter Woit's comment from Brown and Susskind:

Quote

because nine qubits can be easily simulated on a classical computer, the results of this experiment cannot teach us anything that could not be learnt from a classical computation, and will not teach us anything new about quantum gravity.

 

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The Google vs IBM race is probably what's fuelling most of the hype.

 

3 hours ago, Eise said:

 

Quote

because nine qubits can be easily simulated on a classical computer, the results of this experiment cannot teach us anything that could not be learnt from a classical computation, and will not teach us anything new about quantum gravity.

Brown & Susskind

It's an analogical model of an analogical model of a hypothesis. Interesting, yes, but overselling it doesn't help anybody, except --perhaps-- investors.

There's your answer, @geordief

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Woit reaction #2 (full blog post):  The Wormhole Publicity Stunt

Quote

There have already been a lot of claims about “quantum gravity in the lab” made in recent years ... In all cases, what is happening in these labs is some manipulation and observation of electron and electromagnetic fields at low energies. None of this has anything to do with gravitational degrees of freedom. One cannot possibly learn anything about the gravitational field or quantum gravity this way. If there is a dual theoretical description of QED in terms of a “gravitational” theory, this dual description is about other variables that have nothing to do with space-time and gravity in this world.

It’s extremely unusual to not distribute a result like this on the arXiv before publication, to instead keep it confidential and go to the press with embargoed information.... if I had heard ... that a group was about to hold a press conference and announce publication in a major journal of claims about quantum gravity in a lab, and would I respect embargo terms so they could share info with me and get a quote, I would have said no.

For context, there's a youtube video by Quanta Magazine, featuring Leonard Susskind: 
How Physicists Created a Holographic Wormhole in a Quantum Computer

Edited by Lorentz Jr
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