But is it Real? (Part One)
After my colloquium at UC Riverside some weeks back, I was asked an important question I’ve been asked before, and no doubt will be asked again. The same question may have occurred to you given things I’ve written here about the subject of my research concerning applications of string theory (particularly, ideas from quantum gravity) to understanding (relatively) recent experimentally measured phenomena. (The technique of “gauge/gravity dualities”: See also the special Physics Today May issue with articles on all of this. I wrote about that here. It tells you some of what we can and can’t do with the computational technology, and prospects for improvement, etc.)
So the question is “Is it real?”. This is particularly referring to the black hole in the discussion. Recall, one computes properties of new novel liquid phases of matter (that seem to be closely related to what shows up in the lab) by using a toolbox that involves the equations of gravity, in a higher dimensional spacetime, and much of the thermal nature of the system is controlled by a black hole solution of those equations. So people want to know if that black hole is real. A version of the conversation is like this: (Imagine I’ve already introduced the technique, the higher dimensional spacetime, and the black hole…)
