THANK YOU. When I first saw this image my reaction was “GTFO!!!” followed by a desire to drop out and become some kind Zen monk or mystic.

Hehe, indeed. You can see other images besides this one in the paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-023-01272-3

hah, I knew the moment I saw the image that someone was going to poorly crop it, subtitle it, and spread it on social media claiming that entangled particles secretly looked like a yin yang this whole time.

Part of me wants to ignore that it's a constructed image and go on imagining entangled particles forming yin / yang images. Perhaps I can't critique the media too much for implying the same. Though the actual research seems interesting.

You can still join the monkhood if you contemplate on the image of our spiral galaxy.

"to CONSTRUCT the image" [in a way that would generate more buzz and press?]

I couldn't avoid wondering...

The paper[0] contains other images too but this one is certainly more intriguing even if it could lead people to jump to wrong conclusions.

About about this particular one they write:

Finally, Fig. 6 demonstrates an example of the potential applications of biphoton digital holography. The unknown pump beam can carry information about an image or be scattered by a three-dimensional object. The information about the scatterer is transferred to the SPDC state and can be retrieved through our technique (Fig. 6b). We show this in the case of off-axis holography, which can present limitations for complex structures due to the limited camera resolution. These limitations are not related to our proposal and can be improved by employing other approaches, for example, on-axis phase-shifting digital holography9.

[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-023-01272-3

IMO this gimmick is dishonest and not far from outright fabrication of results.

But, it was a real solution of the wave functions wasn't it?

I wouldn't go so far as to say 'fabrication'.

Huh? The paper in no way indicates anything other than they intentionally projected a yin Yang symbol and reconstructed it.

Is that what you thought before you read the paper?

Many people (including myself and others in this HN thread) seem to have taken the yin-yang image as literal insight into the physical structure of a photon. They could have used a different image, perhaps one of their institution's logo and avoided this misinterpretation.

  examples:
  https://www.reddit.com/r/SacredGeometry/comments/15xo6fq/go_figure_photon_entanglement_is_a_yinyang_symbol/
  https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/quantum-yin-yang-scientists-visualize-quantum-entanglement-of-photons-for-the-first-time/

I didn’t have to, the subtext of the image in the linked article clearly says it was a reconstructed image they projected. As someone doing awesome science they get to choose their images.

> Biphoton state holographic reconstruction. Image reconstruction. a, Coincidence image of interference between a reference SPDC state and a state obtained by a pump beam with the shape of a Ying and Yang symbol (shown in the inset). The inset scale is the same as in the main plot. b, Reconstructed amplitude and phase structure of the image imprinted on the unknown pump. Credit: Nature Photonics (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41566-023-01272-3

It’s not their fault the world is full of people hoping to find magic when the science is more magical than where their weak imaginations led them.

I mean, just taking a step back for a second, the idea that the natural physical structure of a photon just so happens to match some Chinese philosophical symbol is laughable-borderline-hilarious. Anyone who actually believes that should probably seriously question their own gullibility.

In response to your edit adding the links, the first links top comment is :

> this is not an image of photon entanglement. if you read the actual paper it is explained that, in testing information reconstruction from biphoton states, the researchers encoded the Yin-Yang symbol onto the pump beam photons superimposed with reference photons. the superposition of these waveforms was then split into photon pairs which, after being separated, were sent onto a single photon sensor array.

Followed by the poster say “oh god damn”

The second link seems to redirect me to another story about fossils, so I’ll guess it was pulled?

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

OK, I've put image construction in the title above to try to ward off further misunderstanding.

Let's please stop arguing about the image now*, and move on to more interesting points.

* (I don't mean you, but the other commenters complaining about this)

"Let's please stop arguing about the image now*, and move on to more interesting points." That's rude. Let's not confuse Hackenews with a ChatGPT prompt.