If it were phrased as "discovered a mathematical solution in string theory that would, if confirmed, represent a topological soliton" that would strike me as more accurate. But this is the reason I stated up front that I'm a layperson: I can certainly imagine that within the community there are conventional uses of language that differ from a layperson's use. That's certainly the case in my own. But the way it is phrased appears, to a layperson, to indicate that the thing has been found to exist.
From another layperson's perspective, it sounds like you are arguing it is "perfectly common" whereas the parent is arguing "it is unreasonable, even if it is common"
Parent here. That's the implication, but my intent was somewhat gentler, along the lines of "Using what appears to be professional language shortcuts common in an industry is sometimes suboptimal when communicating with interested laypersons." I'm making a few assumptions there (first that "discovered" has a commonly accepted meaning in the field and second that that's how it's being used ... and I guess third that there are probably more laypersons than theoretical physicists on HN). I just don't want to hear from my curious but uninformed cousin that "hey did you hear that black holes are just space knots??!!" any more than I have to.
I am an anti-platonist but still think its reasonable to say one discovered a mathematical fact. All this amounts to is discovering that you can reach a sentence in a formal language using the rules of the language and the axioms. One can believe that a recipe for pancakes exists without believing it does so via participating in an unseen ideal world.
