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The title says that the experiments diagree with "the leading theory of the nucleus", which is chiral effective field theory. I don't see anything wrong or "clickbaity" about this.

I would characterize it as the article doesn't have anything overtly wrong with it, but it did make it easy to come away thinking this is revealing some sort of massive fundamental issue with everything, rather than what it is, which is the continuing process of tuning a highly successful theory down in the decimal points.

Whether or not you consider that to be part of their job is in the eyes of the reader.

Small discrepancies in the observed orbit of Mercury ended up changing our understanding of space and time in most profound ways.

That's not at all what's going on here. EFT is a limit of a more fundamental theory which is already known. Orbital mechanics were a limit of a more fundamental theory that was NOT known at the time.

Sorry, but unless you're a physicist, why would you expect to be able to know the significance of the paper? If you walked away misunderstanding the implications, then I gotta ask - assuming you're in software - are you careful to proofread your papers to ensure a geologist doesn't misunderstand them?

"Sorry, but unless you're a physicist, why would you expect to be able to know the significance of the paper?"

Because I expect a news article on the topic to clearly contextualize that answer. That is a core component of their job.

Quanta magazine is pretty good in most things I read, but I feel like they drop this particular ball pretty often. I suppose that concession to clickbaitery is the bare minimum anyone can survive with nowadays. But they are still several cuts above most things I read.

"Theory of the nucleus" does not necessarily imply just QED+QCD in this context. It can mean something derived from QED+QCD - the theory of which elements of the calculation can be thrown out from the QED+QCD calculations. That would be hardly the first theory which is a derived theory from a more fundamental theory. So the headline is fine? For once Quanta was less clickbaity than the preprint.

Thanks for the arxiv link.

I think you're reacting to things the paper doesn't say - they never claim any new physics. EFT is a simpler model than what you'd derive from QCD and it makes sense it'll be wrong in some limits. The paper finds such a limit. That's all? The paper title and abstract seem to be pretty accurate? Or are you objecting to the characterization of EFT as "theory"?

If so, then how about planet formation theory, or solid state physics? Are those also not theories, because they're ultimately just limits of the standard model?

A title of "theory mostly sound, except some extreme edge cases," would cover about 95% of science research.

You think that 95% of science research is news worthy?

> I can't believe they pick such a clickbaity title for a serious publication and let quanta magazine publish an even more clickbaity article about it. Well, I guess they need more funding.

My take from reading the article (not a physicist) is the physics of the nucleus (i.e. the protons and neutrons and strong nuclear force) are treated as emergent phenomena from the quantum theories about fundamental particles (e.g. quarks, leptons & gluons).

Per the article, such leading theory of the nucleus is "chiral effective theory," which seems to be quite inaccurate at making predictions for the experiment in question.

I'm not sure how much more accurate the headline could be, unless chiral effective theory is not in fact the ex ante leading theory of the nucleus.

> "Well, I guess they need more funding."

are they trying to clickbait jim simons

why do we clutch pearls whenever a publication uses a "click-baity" title? at least it manages to a: get people to actually read the publication, and b. publisher/site makes money. nobody's running a charity of information in a capitalist society.

Having an standard of truth is important as a reputation for an organization(whether for commercial or non-commercial reasons). Besides, click-baitiness is not sustainable as in the equilibrium, readers will change expectations to assume artices are click-baity and information on the real breakthroughs will have fight all the fake breakthroughs.

BTW, This is not about Quanta which I find is a really good resource. Although, there might indeed be some click-baitiness not with the motive of profit(you could describe it as a charity run by Jim Simons), but in the sense of someone trying to get students interested with a provocative title for a science talk.

agreed. It's a fine line that publishers have to walk between capturing attention and maintaining credibility. As you've said, the long-term sustainability of clickbait is questionable. It's a short-term strategy that may inflate traffic numbers, but can lead to a loss of trust over time.

The challenge is to strike the right balance between making content appealing and keeping it accurate and valuable, especially crucial with scientific publications, where the accuracy and trustworthiness of information is paramount.