{"id":105080,"date":"2020-04-10T09:23:40","date_gmt":"2020-04-10T16:23:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/04\/charting-a-course-toward-quantum-simulations-of-nuclear-physics"},"modified":"2020-04-10T09:23:40","modified_gmt":"2020-04-10T16:23:40","slug":"charting-a-course-toward-quantum-simulations-of-nuclear-physics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/04\/charting-a-course-toward-quantum-simulations-of-nuclear-physics","title":{"rendered":"Charting a course toward quantum simulations of nuclear physics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/charting-a-course-toward-quantum-simulations-of-nuclear-physics3.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In nuclear physics, like much of science, detailed theories alone aren\u2019t always enough to unlock solid predictions. There are often too many pieces, interacting in complex ways, for researchers to follow the logic of a theory through to its end. It\u2019s one reason there are still so many mysteries in nature, including how the universe\u2019s basic building blocks coalesce and form stars and galaxies. The same is true in high-energy experiments, in which particles like protons smash together at incredible speeds to create extreme conditions similar to those just after the Big Bang.<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately, scientists can often wield simulations to cut through the intricacies. A <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/simulation\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">simulation<\/a> represents the important aspects of one system\u2014such as a plane, a town\u2019s traffic flow or an atom\u2014as part of another, more accessible system (like a <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/computer+program\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">computer program<\/a> or a scale model). Researchers have used their creativity to make simulations cheaper, quicker or easier to work with than the formidable subjects they investigate\u2014like proton collisions or black holes.<\/p>\n<p>Simulations go beyond a matter of convenience; they are essential for tackling cases that are both too difficult to directly observe in experiments and too complex for scientists to tease out every logical conclusion from basic principles. Diverse research breakthroughs\u2014from modeling the complex interactions of the molecules behind life to predicting the experimental signatures that ultimately allowed the identification of the Higgs boson\u2014have resulted from the ingenious use of simulations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In nuclear physics, like much of science, detailed theories alone aren\u2019t always enough to unlock solid predictions. There are often too many pieces, interacting in complex ways, for researchers to follow the logic of a theory through to its end. It\u2019s one reason there are still so many mysteries in nature, including how the universe\u2019s [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1523,33,48,1617,1491],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing","category-cosmology","category-particle-physics","category-quantum-physics","category-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105080\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}