Science Undecided on Room Temperature Superconductors

[Jason]

For the first time, researchers have proved that a fundamental physics problem is actually unsolvable

Researchers have a whole lot of unanswered questions when it comes to the worlds of particle and quantum physics, but one of the most fundamental of those is going to stay that way, with scientists proving for the first time that the problem is mathematically unsolvable.

The problem in question concerns the spectral gap, which is a term for the energy required for an electron to transition from a low-energy state to an excited state. What that really means is that no matter how perfectly and completely we can mathematically describe a material on the microscopic level, we're never going to be able to predict its macroscopic behaviour. If you listen closely, you can almost hear the dreams of physicists everywhere being shattered.

http://www.sciencealert.com/researchers ... unsolvable

[pErvinalia]

Aren't quantum properties unsolveable a la Heisenberg et al?

[Jason]

I don't know that the uncertainty principle is applicable here.

[Seth]

I don't know that the uncertainty principle is applicable here.

I was certain that it was, but now....

[Seth]

This may be a prime opening for a God of the Gaps argument!

There's something that maths can't explain, so God!

[Tero]

The government must regulate its spectral gaps better. Or may be the UN. Otherwise people will carry concealed spectral gaps around with them.

[JimC]

..."The reason this problem is impossible to solve in general is because models at this level exhibit extremely bizarre behaviour that essentially defeats any attempt to analyse them," said co-author David Pérez-García from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in Spain.

“But this bizarre behaviour also predicts some new and very weird physics that hasn’t been seen before. For example, our results show that adding even a single particle to a lump of matter, however large, could in principle dramatically change its properties. New physics like this is often later exploited in technology."...

To me, this is highly reminiscent of Chaos Theory, where a tiny change in initial conditions leads to extremely large and inherently unpredictable behaviour at a later stage.

[Seth]

..."The reason this problem is impossible to solve in general is because models at this level exhibit extremely bizarre behaviour that essentially defeats any attempt to analyse them," said co-author David Pérez-García from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in Spain.

“But this bizarre behaviour also predicts some new and very weird physics that hasn’t been seen before. For example, our results show that adding even a single particle to a lump of matter, however large, could in principle dramatically change its properties. New physics like this is often later exploited in technology."...

To me, this is highly reminiscent of Chaos Theory, where a tiny change in initial conditions leads to extremely large and inherently unpredictable behaviour at a later stage.

Like, oh, maybe a puncture in the fabric of the universe into an empty one that sucks all the matter out of this one. Or a change in the basic physical constants of the existing universe that would make it impossible for life to exist.

Damned physicists like to meddle with things they don't understand to the peril of everyone else. Time to lock them all in a room together with a set of Tinker Toys and nothing else and let them theorize all they like...and never let them out. A Killkenny Cats solution to the overweening arrogance of science.

[pErvinalia]

is there anyone in modern society that you don't fear, Seth??

[Seth]

is there anyone in modern society that you don't fear, Seth??

Sure, non-mad-scientists who don't meddle with things they don't understand anywhere near others. You want to meddle with dynamite like Alfred Nobel, fine, just don't do it where anyone else can get hurt. You want to meddle with X-rays and radium like Marie Curie, fine, just don't spread it around where it can hurt others. You want to meddle with the fundamental building blocks of the universe, okay by me, so long as you wait till you can do it out somewhere east of Alpha Centauri. Until then, cease and desist playing god with physics when it might kill the rest of us merely because you think your curiosity is a superior right to our right to a planet.

I don't think that's too much to ask.

[pErvinalia]

You basically fear what you don't understand. Which, as it turns out, is quite a lot.

[Seth]

You basically fear what you don't understand. Which, as it turns out, is quite a lot.

The problem is not that I don't understand it, the problem is that the physicists who are fucking about don't understand it and admit as much.

It's like giving a baby an open jar of acid in a playroom full of other kids. Stupid.

[pErvinalia]

What are your qualifications for judging that "the physicists who are fucking about don't understand it"??

[mistermack]

..."The reason this problem is impossible to solve in general is because models at this level exhibit extremely bizarre behaviour that essentially defeats any attempt to analyse them," said co-author David Pérez-García from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in Spain.

“But this bizarre behaviour also predicts some new and very weird physics that hasn’t been seen before. For example, our results show that adding even a single particle to a lump of matter, however large, could in principle dramatically change its properties. New physics like this is often later exploited in technology."...

To me, this is highly reminiscent of Chaos Theory, where a tiny change in initial conditions leads to extremely large and inherently unpredictable behaviour at a later stage.

Yeh but, the essential ingredients in chaos theory are time and a chaotic system.
A butterfly beating it's wings in Jamaica can possibly influence the weather in Europe, given a big lump of time, and a chaotic system in constant flux.
But the way that statement reads, adding a particle to a lump of matter could change it's properties in an instant. Or maybe I'm reading it wrong, it's not made clear.

If you have a lump of matter like the Earth's weather, which has to start with a nearly infinite number of ways that it can go, then the butterfly could in theory send it down one particular path.
But that gives a misleading impression that the butterfly is responsible for how it ends up. In reality, it's billions and squillions of random events, that all come together to fix the result, over time.

Adding one particle to a lump of matter and dramatically changing it's properties sounds a lot different.
The term "a lump of matter" doesn't suggest a chaotic system, that's constantly changing anyway, like the weather. It sounds more like a lump of iron, that sits there, unchanging, till they add a single particle, which dramatically changes it's properties.

But if that was the case you would think that we'd be seeing it happen all the time.

[pErvinalia]

Chaos Theory isn't about randomness, I don't think. It's about massive complexity that can't be comprehended in normal time/effort.