• SmoothOperator@lemmy.world
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    23 hours ago

    We can accurately simulate physics, outside of certain extreme environments

    This is not true. For example, we don’t know why [ice is slippery].(https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coldregions.2014.03.002).

    Furthermore

    There are no extreme environments on Earth…

    Yes, there is. Ice. And superconductors. And so on… And even if all the other stuff is exotic, it’s important to know all the other underlying principles to comprehend what’s actually going on.

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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      23 hours ago

      Yeah, that’s more than a few particles. If you had a planet-sized computer, you could still simulate a block of ice, although it might still be hard to explain in a bird-eye view kind of way why the simulated ice is slippery. Which is what this paper is actually trying to do.

      Ditto for superconductors. It’s true that closer to absolute zero something is, the longer quantum features stay relevant, and that imposes a pretty punishing penalty. It’s not infinite, though.