@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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mcnees, to random
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Speaking of, the Hubble Space Telescope sent its first image back to Earth in 1990.

Folks knew right away that something was wrong with the optics, but the problem was eventually corrected.

Ground Image: E. Persson (Las Campanas Observatory, Chile)/Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington
Hubble Image: NASA, ESA, and STScI
https://mastodon.social/@mcnees/110378772317401238

mcnees,
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@Guinnessy I'd never heard this! My college astrophysics professor led the corrective optics project.

mckra1g, to books
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Everyone is at the park! It’s a beautiful evening for reading.

mcnees,
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@mckra1g Ah, what a cool pick! I have not read this one, but Paul takes great care with his books so you are in good hands. (And of course I am happy to answer questions, though my online-ness is a little spotty rn._

mcnees, to random
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I hope this email finds you filing a formal complaint about the "Microsoft AutoUpdate" rootkit that IT installed on everyone's machines.
https://mastodon.social/@mcnees/112470974382531718

mcnees, to random
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Microsoft AutoUpdate, a process that I have repeatedly killed, and also prevented from starting at login, has somehow launched itself to tell me I have to update Microsoft AutoUpdate.

mcnees,
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@Smutny From 1996-2009 or so, I was all Linux all the time. Sysadmin at work, all my personal machines, everything. I even made my own gtk2 themes.

Then I switched over to Mac, which was great for me.

But this past year, for the first time in forever, as the Mac UI friction accrues and the thoughtless Microsoft demands from IT pile up, I've found myself pining for the good old Linux days.

mcnees, to random
@mcnees@mastodon.social avatar

Astronomer Nancy Grace Roman was born OTD in 1925.

After early work in spectral classification and galactic evolution, she became NASA's first Chief of Astronomy and did foundational work planning and overseeing development of the Hubble Space Telescope.

It's no exaggeration to say that her work made the Hubble possible.

Images: NASA

A color photo of the Hubble Space Telescope, taken by the crew of one of the shuttle missions. The Hubble is a mostly silver cylindrical tube, with the bright blue and white curve of the Earth below. One end has a raised flap, and two thin arms sporting small dishes extend from the sides.

mcnees, to random
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I’m beginning to think that giving a lifetime appointment to a rapid partisan with an ideological agenda, was a bad idea.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/16/us/justice-alito-upside-down-flag.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

mcnees, to random
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Florence Nightingale was born in 1820.

Though best known as a nurse (maybe a reductive and gendered way of siloing her contributions) she did pioneering work applying statistics to public health and communicating her results with innovative data visualization.

Image: National Archives (UK)

An innovative "polar sector plot" titled "Diagram Representing Mortality in the Hospitals".

mckra1g, to random
@mckra1g@mastodon.social avatar

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, (edited ) to random
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“There is no joy more intense than that of coming upon a fact that cannot be understood in terms of currently accepted ideas."

Astronomer Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin was born in 1900. She used quantum mechanics to decode the spectral lines of stars and deduce their elemental composition, concluding they are mostly H and He, and was the first woman to be made full professor and department chair at Harvard.

Image: Harvard Observatory

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” #OTD 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,
@mcnees@mastodon.social avatar

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

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

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,
@mcnees@mastodon.social avatar

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

mcnees, to random
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Physicist Marietta Blau was born in 1894. She pioneered the use of nuclear emulsion plates for particle detection, and discovered "disintegration stars" produced by cosmic rays interacting with nuclei in the plates.

Photo: Agnes Rodhe

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