

Inexplicable Superconductor Fractals Hint at Higher Universal Laws - signa11
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/08/superconductor-fractals/

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swombat
This article is so sensationalist I can't get past the beginning. It's also
written by someone with little or not physics understanding, which makes it
immediately suspicious.

For example, gems like:

 _a compound in which electrons obey the spooky laws of quantum physics, and
flow in perfect synchrony, without friction_

immediately destroy the author's credibility.

Has Wired hired some Daily Mail writers?

~~~
SkyMarshal
Are the laws of quantum physics still spooky? IANAP, but I was under the
impression the novelty has worn off and quantum behavior is business as usual
these days.

~~~
chime
Maybe the author was alluding to "Einstein famously derided entanglement as
"spukhafte Fernwirkung"[2] or "spooky action at a distance"." -
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement>

~~~
Groxx
You're giving them that much credit after reading the article?

~~~
mortenjorck
I thought "spooky action at a distance" was nearly as popular (and its context
nearly as often misunderstood) as "God doesn't play dice."

~~~
Groxx
I meant the implied word-play, not referencing nigh-pop-culture. They get no
points for that.

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akshayubhat

         from leaf patterns to stock market fluctuations to the frequency of earthquakes — suggests some sort of common underlying laws, but these remain speculative.
    

Thats misleading, just because same type of fractal exists does not mean that
there is an underlying "universal" law which is followed by stock market as
well as atoms in a semiconductor.

The sentence gives an idea as if stock market can be predicted [horror] or
follows similar law, which is clearly not the case.

E.g. Benford's law is observed in many diverse domains, but this does not
means that knowledge learnt in one domain can be used for learning in another
domains. i.e. just because voter counts in Iranian election and first digit of
the prices of products at Walmart have same distribution does not implies that
one can be used to predict other quantity.

The interesting point of that paper is that, it goes against our understanding
of fluids, we assume the spatial distribution of the oxygen atoms should be
random due to Brownian motion, yet there appears some kind of fractal pattern
in it and that it is related to the temperature of loss of superconductivity.

edit: I have access to the paper from Cornell university library, I read it,
nothing is mentioned about stock markets, its pure speculation by the
journalist, just to end the article on some philosophical note.

edit 2: I am sure variation in Stock Market is NOT a fractal! The variation in
stock market is Scale Free, [which isn't exactly same as being a fractal]. The
journalist seems to be confused between the two terms

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archgoon
As far as I can tell, nothing in the article has the physicists claiming that
their results require new _universal_ physical laws (and I suspect they would
strongly deny they claimed any such thing). The headline seems to be tacked on
to gather traffic.

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signa11
some more information here: [
[http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/62006/title/Super...](http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/62006/title/Superconductors_go_fractal)
] & here : [
[http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727733.800-fractals-...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727733.800-fractals-
promise-highertemperature-superconductors.html) ]

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Jach
Very much a linkbait title, but still interesting in what they found. (Not how
they presented it.) Fractal math has only really been around since the 80s,
there are probably loads of uses it hasn't been put to use for yet. And I'm
reminded to read my book on the math. The seeming-randomness however isn't
that surprising considering you can generate the Sierpinski Triangle with the
random Chaos Game.

Off to the side it seems like the title would be saying analogously that the
lattice structure of other non-fundamental units 'interferes' with the lower-
order particles, rather than just being a consequence of the underlying laws.
It would be very surprising indeed if a higher set of laws or a different
level of reality was at work here. (A nice post related to the topic:
<http://lesswrong.com/lw/on/reductionism/> )

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phaedrus
This reminds me of the kinds of things Stephen Wolfram talks about ("A New
Kind of Science"). Here we have fractal structure somehow influencing the
superconductivity in materials, and the article says it appears that we need
new physical laws to explain it. Maybe theoretical computer science will have
an explanation for it. There is already known to be a link between
thermodynamic entropy and information; maybe there are many more links between
(supposedly) theoretical computer science constructs and actual physical
events.

~~~
phaedrus
(Replying to myself because my post is too old to edit.)

I see I've been upvoted and then downvoted again. I've read comments on HN
that were critical of Stephen Wolfram (either calling him a self promoter or
that his work is derivative of well-known CS theory). Is this the reason for
the back and forth voting?

Personally I'm keeping an open mind about Wolfram, but allow me to point out
that any of the following could be true:

1\. That Wolfram is a crank and the connection between fractals and
superconduction is equally bogus (or at least does not require "a new physical
law" to explain).

2\. Otherwise if Wolfram is right about the significance of universal
computation in physical laws, this may be a manifestation of the kind of
emergent property you might expect to find.

3\. There could be no relation there.

All I'm saying is that I'm slightly more inclined to believe _either_ #1 or #2
more than #3.

~~~
jerf
Wolfram's a volatile topic not because his ideas are considered intrinsically
wrong, but for some combination of the following: 1. He rather insultingly
takes about an order of magnitude more credit than he should; his share is not
zero, but it is not commensurate with the amount he took and 2. For all the
wonderful ideas in "A New Kind of Science", it's pretty darned short on
testable predictions or useful explanations, where by useful I literally mean
"suitable for some use". And I mean any use, including scientific or even just
as a framework for thinking about things.

The link between fractals and superconductivity is interesting and
tantalizing, but the credit should mostly go to the people working on fractal
theory and the people working on superconductivity; a lot of us perceive a
mention of Wolfram as wedging a name into the discussion that really shouldn't
be there.

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nolite
Anyone got good introductory recommendations to learn fractal math?

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Alex3917
So apparently the new age hippies were right after all.

~~~
pjscott
I know you're joking, but there's a general principle at work here. Suppose
you make a prediction (e.g. "There will be a great cataclysm in 2010!") that
later turns out to have been correct in some way (e.g. an earthquake hits
Haiti). Your prediction was only useful to the extent that it could have
helped someone anticipate the Haiti earthquake. A sufficiently vague statement
doesn't tell people anything, even if it turns out to have been technically
correct.

Bringing it back on topic: if New Age guys talk about fractal crystal
handwavium, and later scientists find some genuine science involving fractals
and crystals, that doesn't mean the New Age hippies predicted it. A good
prediction is a _specific_ prediction. You could call this the anti-
Nostradamus principle, but really it's just a generalization of the idea that
a theory ought to be falsifiable.

~~~
mishmash
Sorry to stay a bit off-topic, but if you haven't watched Penn and Teller's
Bullshit show - they bust these type of "predictions" all the time. And
usually, it's pretty funny.

Although they probably don't think of each other as "hackers," they very much
are in my opinion.

<http://www.sho.com/site/ptbs/home.do>

edit: I suppose a NSFW warning would be in order.

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tocomment
How can we use this knowledge to build higher temperature superconductors?

~~~
tocomment
I can't imagine what would be inappropriate about this question? It seems
relevant to the article and within hacker interests.

Any feedback for me?

~~~
nitrogen
IANAQP and I haven't read the paper, but I've read the article, and the
logical interpretation of the article is that increasing the physical scale of
the oxygen atom position fractal would increase the superconductive
temperature.

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mikecane
OK, now I wonder: Any connection between this and the earlier piece linked to
on HN about "God's Number" and Rubik Cube solved in 20 moves? Probably not,
but I still must ask.

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rjurney
This is the dawning of the age of aquarius!

