> science news
> physicists have discovered new particle!
> ask reporter if it's a real particle or just a "quasiparticle" in a simulation
> she doesn't understand
> explain the difference
> she laughs and says it's a good particle sir
> read the paper
> it's a "quasiparticle" in a simulation
@mattskala Now I'm curious: what's the difference between a real particle and a ‘quasiparticle’?
@josemanuel Real particles are physical objects that obey the laws of quantum physics. You can sometimes build systems where there are things that move around and behave kind of like particles but are not physical objects - like say when you knock over a chain of dominoes the place where they're falling moves around almost like it was a physical object - you can measure its velocity and so on - but it ain't really a physical object.
@josemanuel If those simulated things behave according to something *kind of like* quantum physics, those are "quasiparticles." But they might not behave according to the quantum physics rules that apply to actually real particles. Discovering one that does weird things is interesting but not the same as having a weird new particle in real life.
Recent examples that went just like my greentext include "Majorana fermions" and "non-abelian anyons." Interesting but ultimately *not real*.
