There's an additional article in Nature that describes the research:
http://www.nature.com/news/quantum-cloud-simulates-magnetic-...
No it's not a monopole, Div B is still zero everywhere. Yes it is interesting. :)
Observation of Dirac monopoles in a synthetic magnetic field
11–17 of 17 posts
Re: Observation of Dirac monopoles in a synthetic magnetic field
#12Full article for anyone curious: http://ge.tt/2O8mr1H1/v/0?c
Re: Observation of Dirac monopoles in a synthetic magnetic field
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
Physicists tend to be metaphysical sceptics on the whole, meaning that they arent really convinced that the implied objects (/particles/fields/etc.) of physical theories actually exist^. Merely that "something exists which makes the mathematics work". Seeing so many different kinds of math work for the same physical system tends to engender a kind of scepticism towards the "metaphysical power" of mathematics to imply…
> The point is that whatever system enables the math to work is irrelevant to what ever uses theories will have for this math. Additional explanation from someone who (also?) used to do research, with papers and all: we actually used objects we knew did not exist to do actual science. By "do not exist" I mean "they are make-believe theoretical objects that do not exist per se, but they are good models for things that…
I guess an electron is "an actual point".
Re: Observation of Dirac monopoles in a synthetic magnetic field
#14The BBC coverage quotes a Lindsay LeBlanc, of the University of Alberta, "a physicist not involved in the study": "Although these results offer only an analogy to a magnetic monopole, their compatibility with theory reinforces the expectation that this particle will be detected experimentally." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25946734 The overall phrasing seems to say that it's still just an analogue of…
As others have pointed out, these are indeed just analogues of (fundamental) monopoles.
IMHO, this is an example of a deliberately-slightly-misleading abstract for a paper. The authors write: "Although analogues of magnetic monopoles have been found [in others' work] there has been no direct experimental observation of Dirac monopoles within a medium described by a quantum field [...]. Here we demonstrate the controlled creation of Dirac monopoles in [...]. Monopoles are identified, in [...]"
If I were a referee for the paper, I would have registered the following objection: When referring to others' work, the authors use the phrase "analogues of monopoles" whereas they reserve the phrases "monopole" and "Dirac monopole" for references to their own. Their terminology seems especially egregious on account of their earlier statement: "The existence of even a single Dirac magnetic monopole would have far-reaching physical consequences, most famously explaining the quantization of electric charge". In fact they too have only discovered analogues of monopoles and the abstract is confusing for non-specialists, as evidenced by this thread.
Nature is a journal that has been known to give in to the temptation to sensationalise so I am not all that surprised.
Re: Observation of Dirac monopoles in a synthetic magnetic field
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
Physicists tend to be metaphysical sceptics on the whole, meaning that they arent really convinced that the implied objects (/particles/fields/etc.) of physical theories actually exist^. Merely that "something exists which makes the mathematics work". Seeing so many different kinds of math work for the same physical system tends to engender a kind of scepticism towards the "metaphysical power" of mathematics to imply…
> The point is that whatever system enables the math to work is irrelevant to what ever uses theories will have for this math. Additional explanation from someone who (also?) used to do research, with papers and all: we actually used objects we knew did not exist to do actual science. By "do not exist" I mean "they are make-believe theoretical objects that do not exist per se, but they are good models for things that…
Perhaps it's phenomenological models all the way down. If that is, indeed, the case, is a hole significantly less "real" than a mobile electron?
Re: Observation of Dirac monopoles in a synthetic magnetic field
#16Full article for anyone curious: http://ge.tt/2O8mr1H1/v/0?c
(link seems not to work any longer, mirror: http://bayfiles.net/file/15Fqf/KfQTOj/nature12954.pdf)
Re: Observation of Dirac monopoles in a synthetic magnetic field
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The point is that whatever system enables the math to work is irrelevant to what ever uses theories will have for this math. Additional explanation from someone who (also?) used to do research, with papers and all: we actually used objects we knew did not exist to do actual science. By "do not exist" I mean "they are make-believe theoretical objects that do not exist per se, but they are good models for things that…
I guess an electron is "an actual point".
But it's not the only charge carrier. To put things in better context, classical electromagnetism actually predates knowledge about the structure of atoms. The charges in its model are very much hypothetical particles, and that's why it only really works at macroscopic scales. Turns out that's actually enough for a lot of things :).