Some good stuff in Quanta magazine

I'd like to highlight a couple of excellent physics articles that appeared in Quanta magazine last month.

First, Thomas Lewton profiles Jonathan Oppenheim's work on hybrid classical-quantum theories of quantum gravity.  The idea seems to be that instead of attempting to quantize the gravitational field, let it remain classical.  To reconcile quantum uncertainty with a classical spacetime, gravity must be stochastic; it must be noisy.  

Second, Katie McCormick discusses a topological insulator analogy that has been used to explain atmospheric motions such as Kelvin waves in the Earth's atmosphere.  Taruh Matsuno's successful prediction of equatorial Kelvin waves in the 1960s was, evidently, one of the only times theoretical work in geophysical fluid dynamics was predictive of phenomena later discovered in nature.  The article focuses on Brad Marston and collaborators' theoretical and observational work demonstrating that Matsuno's waves can be understood using a topological insulator analogy (think quantum Hall effect).  Once again, a theoretical prediction (Poincare gravity waves in the stratosphere) was subsequently confirmed observationally.  Finally the article discusses David Tong's quantum field theoretical framing of coastal Kelvin waves.

I had attended a talk by Marston at the APS March Meeting earlier this year (see my earlier post), but did not quite follow it.  I am grateful to Quanta magazine for distilling the story into a form that can be consumed by a wider public (including me).