Once the Bill Was Paid

Duke Quantum Center: thirteen trapped ions encode a string-breaking model. Two charges that want to stay; the string is the cost of that want. Pull until the energy in the middle is enough for new charges to sit where the string was.

The press says they pop into existence, or that we are watching the early universe in a lab.

Pop into existence is a late mouth. Early universe is a late mouth. Snap is a late mouth for a cost that had been sitting in the middle the whole time. Creation is only a name we give once the bill was already paid.

Looking is the stretch — energy spent while they were still one — and the new pair that sits only after that cost is enough, not from nothing.

The Stretch already has the leftover as stretch, not new pair. The leftover is both: the cost that sat in the middle the whole time, and the seats that open only after the bill is paid.