As a counterpoint: what about the efficacy of condensed matter physics informing developments in quantum field theory?
Of course analog systems must be treated carefully, but I think we shouldn't rush to do away with the practice entirely. Naturally, we do want to study black holes directly (with experiments like LIGO, LISA, etc.), but this is very expensive, difficult, and time consuming. If a small lab wants to try out some gravitationally analogous system, why not?
The thing is, this isn't even a challenge to any assumptions physicists have, or even a surprising result. Every prediction of quantum theory for these kinds of atomic systems has been borne out.
All this "weirdness" is the same old story of "Is it a particle or a wave?!," when in reality, we know its neither. Quantum objects are represented by wavefunctions, or vectors in a Hilbert space, to which "particle" and "wave" are intuitive approximations in certain regimes, that makes it easier for humans to talk about in natural, non-mathematical language.
All this experiment has shown is that a object that we expect to be described by quantum mechanics turns out to, indeed, be described by quantum mechanics.
"The standard interpretation of entanglement is that there is some kind of instant communication happening between the two particles."
This is flat-out not true. The standard interpretation is that the entangled objects are part of a single quantum state. Measurement/observation of the state collapses the wave-function, and does not necessarily imply communication between the constituent parts.
I read that to be more like "the naive interpretation of entanglement". The author even spends the remainder of the paragraph reminding (or educating) the reader that faster-than-light communication is not possible, and then the rest of the article is exploring retrocausality as another mechanism to explain entanglement with violating FTL restrictions.
> This is flat-out not true. The standard interpretation is
Unrelated Query: How can something be "flat out not true" if it's only an interpretation? Seems to be that what you're describing is a consensus or popular view opposed to a hard fact or universal truth.
> How can something be "flat out not true" if it's only an interpretation?
I think that chakademus meant that it is flat-out not true that "the standard interpretation … is that there is some kind of instant communication happening between the two particles" (notice the scope of the quotation marks); that is, that this is not the standard interpretation, not that this interpretation is 'wrong' (whatever that means).
metaphysics: the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space.
astrophysics: the branch of astronomy concerned with the physical nature of stars and other celestial bodies, and the application of the laws and theories of physics to the interpretation of astronomical observations.
Much of the nature of the cosmos is indeed a mystery, but that doesn't diminish the importance of the multitude of things we've learned about our universe from various physical observations and measurements.
Physicist here: the BICEP2 findings have a fair chance of being borne out, but I do feel that the BICEP group was a bit premature claiming definitive detection.
The doubts of independent groups, and the need for further experiments to confirm the results is the scientific method and community working as intended.
Ultimately, its mostly been the sensationalistic media coverage that makes the situation seem more controversial than it really is.
With the original announcement came a "five sigma" or so claim. Was that misleading or not? (was it plain wrong?) I mean, I'd expect from hearing something like that that unless the underlying theory changes the hypothesis is almost certainly true. Or is the uncertainty figure given in a more limited sense?
If you are making a systematic mistake (not necessarily an error, could also be an approximation that doesn't hold) in your analysis, the "5sigma" does not really take that into account.
Struggling to come up with a simple example. Imagine you collect some data, analyse it and see a "3sigma" effect. You decide to collect more data to see if the effect keeps getting bigger or goes away. After collecting a lot more data you get "5sigma". This could be because it is real, or because you have an "unknown unknown"
If you had a systematic (as oppose to a random effect) shift in your analysis, collecting more data will make you more sure that there is an effect. Even though all you are seeing is the effect of the systematic shift.
For almost all analyses in particle physics (or astro or ...) we spend a huge part of our time evaluating "systematics", it isn't uncommon that this part of the analysis takes a lot longer than the nominal result. Unfortunately this only protects you against known unknowns. You can't take into account things you don't think of/check for.
I suppose if your estimator is biased and not consistent -- due to some sort of omitted variable -- you can end up with "significant" estimates that are completely removed from reality. Great explanation at http://eranraviv.com/blog/bias-vs-consistency/.
But isn't it the case that anything we're capable of measuring here, given the relatively short available sample of data we'd be able to obtain (decades), would be inside any margin of error when comparing that to the age of the universe (13.8 billion years according to Big Bang)?
I don't see how it follows that we shouldn't be able to measure phase differences in the CMB just because the CMB is a lot older than our measurements.
Of course analog systems must be treated carefully, but I think we shouldn't rush to do away with the practice entirely. Naturally, we do want to study black holes directly (with experiments like LIGO, LISA, etc.), but this is very expensive, difficult, and time consuming. If a small lab wants to try out some gravitationally analogous system, why not?