#physics #specialrelativity Just a reminder that the words "moving clocks run slow" is a *terrible* phrase to use in talking about relativity. It confuses students, teachers, the general public etc. The reality of special relativity is far cooler and (according to a teacher I was helping) […]

Here's my review for @theguardian.com of @rowhoop.bsky.social's superb new book Togetherness. I recommend it highly. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...

I'm presenting a webinar on "Class modelling and outlier detection in NIR spectroscopy" We have two sessions scheduled 🔸 Session 1 (best for the Americas): Jun 16th, 06:00 - 07:00 (UTC+10) 🔸 Session 2 (best for EMEA - APAC): Jun 16th, 18:00 - 19:00 (UTC+10) Registration is free, but spots are […]

These are the things I love in #astronomy: you look at a dwarf planet in our solar system that’s smaller than Pluto and it passes right in front of a star, so you can see how the starlight is blocked as it moves across the star. And the unexpected happens: the light disappears more slowly than […]

📣 I'm planning to organize an online series of webinars/workshops, focused on #chemometrics and #machinelearning for #spectroscopy (using #python ) I'd like it to be beginner-friendly and informal. 🆓 Free registration 🏛️ Tutorial and research talks 📅 Monthly or fortnightly schedule 💻 Fully […]

If your #spectroscopy dataset is small, deterministic data subdivision into training and test sets may be the way to go 🔬 The SPXY algorithm is an extension of the Kennard-Stone method that selects training samples to maximize coverage of both spectra (X) and response variable (Y) at the same […]

We have twelve old Tektronix TDS3014 oscilloscopes (9-bit ADC) that we need to get rid of from the lab. I would prefer to just give them to students but we cannot do that legally easily. Is anyone interested in purchasing them? Anyone interested? Ideally the whole lot. Location is 🇩🇰 but I can […]

Our latest paper was finally published in Nature! --> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10356-3 We jumped on the #quantumcomputing bandwagon and demonstrated that we can do 2-qubit gates with very high fidelity in a system with cold fermionic atoms! The special emphasis lies on the […]

It's nice to know that the solution to price hikes created by a war is to give some more money to the banks #auspol https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-18/is-reserve-bank-interest-rate-rise-fighting-last-years-war/106463596

*Those dirty scam artists stole our virtualized fruit-fly

CAUTION: EVENTS IN CALENDAR ARE SOONER THAN THEY APPEAR

RE: https://fosstodon.org/@pandoc/116011707001692685 And it's completely ad-free, of course. Many thanks to everybody sponsoring us!

In #physics we'll generally use SI units i.e. s, m and kg (the second, metre and kilogram). However, physicists will also often use "natural" units as they can be more convenient and/or provide more insight. What is meant by "insight"? E.g. the Lorentz transformations (just one spatial […]

#silentsunday #australia

I learnt about the "entropy of the derivative" or delentropy from the paper linked. The idea is that the standard formula for information entropy doesn't distinguish between permutations. The entropy formula −∑p(x)logp(x) depends on p(x) which, absent any extra information about a signal, is […]

It took a while, but I'm finally back to writing my blog 😎 The first installment for 2026 is an easy introduction to calculating information #entropy for optical spectra (or for any signal, really). In my blog, I focus on #data analysis (#chemometrics, machine learning) applied to optical and […]

I learnt about the "entropy of the derivative" or delentropy from the paper linked. The idea is that the standard formula for information entropy doesn't distinguish between permutations. The entropy formula −∑p(x)logp(x) depends on p(x) which, absent any extra information about a signal, is […]

It took a while, but I'm finally back to writing my blog 😎 The first installment for 2026 is an easy introduction to calculating information #entropy for optical spectra (or for any signal, really). In my blog, I focus on #data analysis (#chemometrics, machine learning) applied to optical and […]

Existing World's Smallest Violin Still Too Large By Orders of Magnitude, Say Boffins https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-prompt-plagiarism-art

The EU is working on what is in essence a new Open Source strategy for Europe, and the call for evidence is now open. This is our cue to provide feedback and input to the strategy! If you are involved in the Open Source community in any way, if you benefit (or could benefit) in any way from […]

Time to say goodbye to Goodreads. Now the question is, Bookwyrm or Storygraph? #books #bookstodon

We just published a new paper about a totally new method to compute neutron scattering. The problem is deceptively simple: what happens when you throw a neutron against an atomic nucleus? If we throw many neutrons, how many will bounce off without exchanging […] [Original post on mathstodon.xyz]

If you’re a user of Libby (the library app), consider before following their suggestion to type #inspireme into the search bar. It seems harmless, but it turns on an unrequested AI feature, & there is no way to reverse that. This comes courtesy of ProfHeyRochelle, who is now reasonably pissed […]

I KNEW IT! I TOLD YOU THE VERY MOMENT I SAW THE NEWS ABOUT THE PAPER! MY DEPARTMENT WON AN IGNOBEL!!! https://improbable.com/ig/winners/?amp=1#ig2025 #ignobel #ignobel2025 #unipd #padua #physics #physicsofmatter #cacioepepe #pasta #italy #italians

#silentsunday #hongkong

Quite surprisingly, most of the properties of (classical) synchrotron radiation were worked out by G.A. Schott in1907--1912 in his dissertation work. Working in a 'pre-quantum' world, Schott wanted to explain the observed lines in the emission #spectra of atoms […] [Original post on aus.social]

Synchrotron light is conventionally defined as the emission from accelerated ultra-relativistic electric charges. Ultra-relativistic means that the speed of the charge is extremely close to the speed of light, v ≈ c. The first part of the book deals with introductory concepts, starting from […]

In a bit of shameless self-promotion, I'm proud to announce that I've a new book out! "Synchrotron Light: a Physics Journey from Laboratory to Cosmos", was written together with my co-author Prof. David Paganin and published by Oxford University Press. Target […] [Original post on aus.social]

Non scrivo molto in italiano (in realta' non scrivo molto in generale 🫠 ) ma devo fare un'eccezione per questo libro divulgativo di fisica quantistica scritto a quattro mani da Anna Parisis e Valentina Schettini. Il libro s'intitola "Quanti Quanti" edito da Salani. E' stata una lettura molto […]

Wanting to live in the end times is kind of cowardly since it absolves of you of the burden of building a better future. Some great compelling force will come down from on hight and sort it all out. Since you don't really know what times you face it's more responsible and brave to live as if […]

I'm looking for a #developer to join our team at Rubens Technologies on a part time basis. Rubens is a fruit quality assessment technology based on spectrometry and machine learning/chemometrics. Primary responsibility will be to automate current workflows and progressively step in to […]

Seen on a local #streetlibrary. "Fresh Prime Numbers. Please take one." #hobart #maths

I'm looking for an assembly and test technician on a casual basis, to work on our Rubens hand-held spectral scanners. If you are in #melbourne eastern suburbs (or willing to commute) and want to know more, please DM me or send us a message https://rubenstech.com/contact-us/ #FediHire

*How alarming when YOUR OWN work ends up in a museum, like, "wow, political chaos in the USA, that sure sounds far-fetched, what an oddity" #distraction

🔁 Mastodon users can follow Pixelfed accounts. 🔃 Pixelfed users can follow Mastodon accounts. 🖧 It's the Fediverse. Not everybody knows this. Spread the word! #mastodon #pixelfed #fediverse

Found this, appropriately enough in the spam folder. And it is just the kick in the arse I need to finally divorce myself from #Windows. Started dual booting #Linux back in 2018, and have been running Linux (Mint) only laptops since about 2021. I keep the […] [Original post on aus.social]

Another page from a tested and proven playbook. "Entain, which was taken to the federal court this month by Australia’s financial intelligence agency for alleged breaches of anti-money laundering laws, was a foundational sponsor of the [University of Sydney] centre of excellence in gambling […]

where I discuss a neat way to include preprocessing techniques such as multiplicative scatter correction (MSC) in a #scikit_learn pipeline. MSC is one example of preprocessing techniques that are specific to #spectroscopy (esp. #optical and #nir ) #python #machinelearning #datascience […]

where I discuss a neat way to include preprocessing techniques such as multiplicative scatter correction (MSC) in a #scikit_learn pipeline. MSC is one example of preprocessing techniques that are specific to #spectroscopy (esp. #optical and #nir ) #python #machinelearning #datascience […]

🚨 It’s official! The Journal of Open Source Software has published our data analysis software for terahertz time-domain spectroscopy! 🍾🎉🌈 Congrats to my student-researcher coauthors! Thanks also to the people at @pyOpenSci, who organized the peer review and helped during development. From […]

Prahran (Melbourne), #australia #graffiti #urbanart

I often show my students this visualization of how atmospheric CO₂ travels around the globe. Our attitude toward burning fossil fuels would change significantly if we could actually see CO₂. svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?11719

For those of you who weren't at #monktoberfest last month, here's my talk about how people with no stake in the game taught Open Source users to be assholes and maintainers to not know how or who to ask for help, with almost predictably disastrous consequences […]

Americans: "Oh no, we couldn't _possibly_ replace Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman on the $20; what kind of precedent would it set if we just started changing the picture on our money?" Australians:

Damian Barr's original quote: "We are not all in the same boat. We are all in the same storm. Some of us are on super-yachts. Some have just the one oar." https://www.damianbarr.com/latest/https/we-are-not-all-in-the-same-boat

"Modern cars are surveillance devices on wheels with major privacy risks" New report by Katharine Kemp (UNSW) on the enormous privacy risks posed by connected cars. The report was specifically researched for cars sold in Australia. @pluralistic […]