@mcnees@mastodon.social
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mcnees

@mcnees@mastodon.social

Physicist and professor at a school on the north side of Chicago. Black holes, quantum gravity, cosmology. Rocky Top, Tar Heel. Science, dogs, lake photos. Faves are spooky action at a distance, boosts are Lorentz transformations to another inertial frame. Opinions are mine, not my employer’s. #Physics #BlackHoles #Gravity #SciComm #Dogs

Level 14 Prof of Physics, Neutral Good, S:11 I:16 W:15 D:11 C:12 Ch:11, HP: 68, THAC0: 11, Equipment: Vorpal Chalk, Periapt of Tenure, Tweed Jacket (Cursed)

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mckra1g, to random
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It’s days like today when I really wish teleportation existed. All three of my kids are on the west coast. We’re face timing today, but it would be great to actually see them in person.

#random

mcnees,
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@mckra1g Happy Mother’s Day :)

mcnees, to random
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Knuckle tats that say
P/O/L/Y/D/A/C/T/Y/L/Y

mcnees, to random
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Cemetery coyote lounging in the sun

image/jpeg

mcnees, to random
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Pretty sure you aren’t supposed to advertise this.

mcnees, to random
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Presented without comment.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/08/us/rfk-jr-brain-health-memory-loss.html?unlocked_article_code=1.qU0.HiQE.i7fZF-oqy297

mcnees, to random
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A thread about a great physicist and mentor, who I really looked up to.
https://mastodon.social/@mcnees/110305317960093816

mcnees, to random
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Getting my final exam ready for this Saturday.

mcnees,
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(Using XeLaTeX to inject some Star Wars ttf)

mcnees, to random
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Albert Einstein completed his dissertation “A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions” in 1905.

When he submitted it to the University of Zürich on July 20, his committee complained that it was a little short. It was only 21 pages long!

https://www.research-collection.ethz.ch/bitstream/handle/20.500.11850/139872/eth-30378-01.pdf

mcnees,
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Just to put this in context, Einstein completed his dissertation six weeks after submitting his photoelectric effect paper, and less than two weeks before he sent in his Brownian motion paper.

He then focused on special relativity in mid-May, and submitted that paper in late June.

mcnees,
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Here is what Einstein's 1905 looked like:

March 17: Finish photoelectric effect paper

April 30: "Uh, I should probably finish my dissertation?"

May 11: Publish Brownian Motion paper

May: Finalize core ideas of special relativity

June 30: Publish 1st special relativity paper

September 27: Publish 2nd special relativity paper

mcnees,
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@thomasfuchs How so? (I have no idea!)

mcnees,
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In case anyone is wondering, the committee approved Einstein's dissertation.

mcnees,
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Anyway, today is the last day of April. Tick tock.

mcnees, (edited ) to random
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Pretty good flowers, imo. #bloomscrolling

mcnees, (edited )
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Cut back a tall stand of dead pampas grass and found this beauty.

mcnees,
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(This is all my wife’s handiwork, restoring the previous owner’s once-lovely garden that had gone to seed.)

glennf, to random
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$2.6 trillion company, folks

Short movie showing a dialog in iOS that says Update Apple ID Settings. When the Continue button is tapped, a progress spinner appears, spins, and then disappears. Tapping Continue again does the same thing.

mcnees,
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@glennf Weird. Wonder why it hit some but not others.

mcnees, to random
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Speaking this into existence: Someone please put together a lavish coffee table book that’s just ads from old issues of Dragon and White Dwarf.

mcnees, to random
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An thread from last year, about the scientific contributions of Julius Oppenheimer.

A lot of "common knowledge" about black holes – infinite redshift, the slow progress of an infalling observer from the point of view of a distant spectator – can be traced back to an influential paper Oppenheimer wrote in 1939.
https://mastodon.social/@mcnees/110245056828062741

design_law, to random
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Chicago-area friends: We hope you can join us for an IP event at Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology on the evening of Wednesday, May 15.

Register (for free) here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSefw3NPcAAKF5DczmEtwkUXZvLrISOXyZR2IycAIZ5v5JeK0A/viewform

mcnees,
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@design_law Uh, welcome to Chicago!

mcnees, to random
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“Albert Einstein Lived Here”

Herb Block's cartoon memorializing Einstein appeared in the Washington Post in 1955, the day after Einstein passed away.

Image: Herb Block / Library of Congress

mcnees, to random
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Hat tip to the folks at @panic for the planet-themed app icons in Nova.

mcnees,
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Lol

mcnees, to random
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Someone is getting rid of all their old Roger Zelazny paperbacks in my neighborhood’s little free library, and I wish I knew who it was so I could save them some time and take them all at once.

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