I’m curious: could anyone knowledgeable share a bit about these QCD lattice models — are they incredibly complicated? Are there open source implementations of these models and if so, would the code make any sense to a non-physicist programmer?
> are they incredibly complicated?
That depends on what you mean by "complicated". Conceptually they are not too bad, it's basically just quantum field theory (which some might consider "incredibly complicated" so YMMV). But the devil is in the details. From the article:
"While physicists know the exact equation that defines the strong force — the fundamental force that binds quarks together to make the protons and neutrons in the hearts of atoms, as well as other composite particles like tetraquarks — they can rarely solve this strange, endlessly iterative equation, so they struggle to predict the strong force’s effects."
> Are there open source implementations of these models
That I don't know.
> and if so, would the code make any sense to a non-physicist programmer?
Having seen code written by scientists, I can confidently answer this with: almost certainly not.
>Having seen code written by scientists, I can confidently answer this with: almost certainly not.
Got a kick out of that, thanks. I think there is a kind of compartmentalization of environments going on when one engages in scientific programming. It seems to often be structured more akin to math than code. I once worked with a brilliant multitalented individual who held a PhD in a specific field of physics that I cannot recall. In one instance they ported the orchestration software for a supercomputer from python into java, in a week. It was beautiful to read. This same person used single letter variables in their ML models and had virtually zero comments which made it somewhat difficult for me to follow their updates after a week of having not seen the code.