Review: Graphene Superlattices

 I was asked to examine the claims of an article linked to in another post.

It is pretty long..  sorry.

Review:

out-of-equilibrium criticalities in graphene superlattices

This article on graphene superlattices is an example of media hype and journalistic sensationalism used to grab headlines, fool the gullible, and make clickbait to monetize a pseudoscience article that does not support the claim.

I'll review the original study, in part, and point out some of the flawed assumptions and extrapolations of the journalistic fluff piece. 

This is becoming increasingly common, in pseudoscientific circles, because of the lack of skepticism/critical thinking, and the desperation to prop up the belief in atheistic naturalism.

"Something from nothing!"

..is the claim.

 "Spontaneous generation proved possible!"

But is it? Does this study actually suggest that "Something!', can come from 'nothing!"?

Or is it another example of seizing sensational headlines, to make unjustified claims and clickbait to dazzle the gullible? 

Here is the original study:

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abi8627

If you do a search, you can find a pdf of the entire study.

It is a highly technical study of current flows using graphene, and applying it to quantum theory.  Nowhere does this study claim, 'something from nothing!' Nowhere is a suggestion of 'spontaneous generation!' made. This is more about the SUBSTANCE, graphene, and the superlattice constructed, for conductivity and high current properties.  It relates to the Schwinger Effect, and they allude to a possible connection, but they do not claim this experiment 'proves!' Schwinger's theory.

That is left to the Journalistic Hype of this article, that seized on some implications, dropped a few techno babble terms, and made wild claims for a study that does not even pretend to suggest them.

https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/something-from-nothing/?fbclid=IwAR0sLcIiNM-GHPGU0CdR8wrR99KJ1KnEXWLVy_6-ua01seBt8ltmOAArBpI

"Collide two particles in the abyss of empty space, and sometimes additional particle-antiparticle pairs emerge. Take a meson and try to rip the quark away from the antiquark, and a new set of particle-antiparticle pairs will get pulled out of the empty space between them. And in theory, a strong enough electromagnetic field can rip particles and antiparticles out of the vacuum itself, even without any initial particles or antiparticles at all."

That is the theory from the Schwinger Effect, which posits the ability to split electron-positron pairs, under a high electrical charge. The result is another pair (with loss of energy), giving the illusion that the split 'created' a new pair.

"But in early 2022, strong enough electric fields were created in a simple laboratory setup leveraging the unique properties of graphene, enabling the spontaneous creation of particle-antiparticle pairs from nothing at all."

Problems

1. Quantum theory is not an exact science. 

From wiki:

Since its inception, the many counter-intuitive aspects and results of quantum mechanics have provoked strong philosophical debates and many interpretations. The arguments centre on the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics, the difficulties with wavefunction collapse and the related measurement problem, and quantum nonlocality. Perhaps the only consensus that exists about these issues is that there is no consensus. Richard Feynman once said, "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics." According to Steven Weinberg, "There is now in my opinion no entirely satisfactory interpretation of quantum mechanics."

Making empirical claims on a topic that is by nature ambiguous and fluid, is absurd. There are too many variables..  ..too many unknowns, to make dogmatic statements in quantum theory.

2. The speculations and conjectures from the fluff piece have no support in the original study. It is another example of overreach and desperation. Piltdown man, the Lenski E.coli experiment, and others are cousin examples of running beyond what the evidence suggests, and desperation to prop up the beliefs of atheistic naturalism. 

3. The conclusions made are not scientifically compelling. There are other possible explanations for the split pairs that do not suggest 'spontaneous generation!' Even wiki disputes the 'something from nothing!' claim in their article on the Schwinger Effect: "The Schwinger effect can be thought of as vacuum decay in the presence of an electric field. Although the notion of vacuum decay suggests that something is created out of nothing, physical conservation laws are nevertheless obeyed. To understand this, note that electrons and positrons are each other's antiparticles, with identical properties except opposite electric charge."

4. The laboratory and highly technical conditions that this study utilizes is unthinkable in a cosmic vacuum of nothingness. That energy would suddenly 'split!' a charged pair (that does not yet exist), using energy with no source, becomes so imaginative and speculative that any other tribal origins myth has more credibility and plausibility. Neither the theory nor the study provide any support for the belief in the spontaneous generation of matter in a godless universe. 

Conclusion 

The original study is about the electrical properties of graphene, and possible applications to the Schwinger Effect. The journalistic piece is a sensational headline, made for clickbait, and to provide wishful thinking for the absurd belief in spontaneous generation and atheistic naturalism.