English self-taught mathematician and physicist Oliver Heaviside was born #OTD in 1850.
He invented a new technique for solving differential equations, independently developed vector calculus, and rewrote Maxwell's equations in the form commonly used today. He significantly shaped the way Maxwell's equations are understood and applied in the decades following Maxwell's death. His practical experience in telegraphy provided a foundation for his later theoretical work.
He was an unusual man, who had some unfortunate mental health problems in later life: signing his name with the "title" suffix "W.O.R.M.", painting his nails pink (more unusual then than it would be now), replacing his furniture with granite blocks, and so on. (See Wikipedia, below.)
On the other hand, I sorta like the idea that there's a lot more room for weirdness in the world than we normally allow for.
@weekend_editor He made a significant contribution by providing a new interpretation of Maxwell's equations. And probably his mental issues were due to the intense dedication to his work. We should look at his legacy instead...
My PhD thesis has been published!
If you're interested in how to manipulate atoms into their coldest possible state using lasers, and why it's interesting to drop them in a 10m vacuum tower, this is for you! Also, fun with "painting" arbitrary shapes with laser beams! #physics#AtomInterferometry#Quantum#QuantumSensing https://doi.org/10.15488/17346
This is quite interesting. (no... really!) I recently persuaded a colleague to take my pet Geiger counter from Dunedin to Apia via Auckland. The latitude dependency of the radiation exposure is fascinating! #radiation#NewZealand#physics
@_thegeoff The x axis is minutes but the time between flights has been cut out for the charts (Geiger counter turned on just before each flight and off after flight landed).
A massive cotton candy-like exoplanet stumps astronomers.
@popsci reports on a new study from Nature Astronomy: "Despite being 50 percent bigger than the gas giant Jupiter, exoplanet WASP-193b is seven times less dense."
The “Astrophysical and Cosmological Relativity” department at the @mpi_grav in Potsdam announces the opening of several postdoctoral appointments.
These appointments will be in the area of data analysis and its interface with waveform modeling for the recently adopted space-based gravitational-wave detector LISA.