This paper mentions that vortices in a 2d system of phases end up acting like particles that obey a 1/r force law, which is so cool to me. Instead of thinking 'vortices act like particles' I prefer 'whoa, particles act like vortices'. Electrons and positrons annihilate when they meet in much the same way that a vortex plus an antivortex do (except they give off photons, so maybe they're just 'more complicated' vortices in some way?).