Antipodes

We provide evidence for this

Duality through seven loops.

Duality doesn’t always

Signify splits and divisions.

The thing about binary pairs

Is that they’re not just binaries,

They’re paired. They have a connection.

To be dual is to be one.

Sometimes connections are hidden.

A discovery’s exciting—

For instance, the newly christened.

Antipodal duality.

This poem is not the time or place

For advanced particle physics,

But you can wrap your thoughts around

Their baby’s brand new name at least.

Antipodal duality.

One end’s scattering amplitudes

Present the probabilities

Of getting four gluons from two—

Other end, the probability

Of just one gluon and a Higgs.

Two apparently different,

Very different, outcomes from

An inversion connecting them.

That difference. That connection,

You can’t have the antipodes

Without whatever’s between them,

But whatever is between them,

However well it predicts them,

Isn’t them. They are not the same.

Does this ensure causality?

We’re not sure. We’d guess not. Incoming

Before outgoing might perhaps

Be mandatory, only just.

Can you fall asleep in China

And wake in Patagonia?

Only thanks to spinning iron.

But must you pass through the iron?

There are many ways lines make pairs.