Today’s World Digital Preservation Day 2025 brings the release of the new Global Bit List of Endangered Digital Materials from the @dpc-chat.digipres.club.ap.brid.gy 🌍 It’s a snapshot of the digital materials most at risk of being lost forever. #WDPD2025 -> www.dpconline.org/digipres/cha...

Do you take snapshots of your everyday life as a physical scientist? @aip.bsky.social is soliciting photos from scientists at all career stages and disciplines from around the world to broaden its 30 000+ photo collection, which is used frequently by historians. #physics #astronomy #histSTM

Learn more about the work of AIP's librarians & archivists to build a more contemporary and inclusive visual record of the physical sciences community in this new @physicstoday.bsky.social article -> "Archivists seek photos of today’s physical scientists" physicstoday.aip.org/news/archivi...

In today's AIP History Weekly Edition, guest contributor Don Opitz looks at the multitudinous scholarly and professional contributions of the late Margaret Rossiter in creating a historiography of women in science. #HPS

Had a great time exploring @hornbakelibrary.bsky.social’s new exhibition. Letterpress, labor unions, archivists, and Zip disks. What more could you want! Kudos to the whole team on a great exhibit.

Really proud of this piece, and the full report that will come out in the near future. What we learned from early career leaders in the physical sciences is likely broadly relevant to other scholarly/scientific domains.

“Reframing the narrative on physics readiness” great article in @physicstoday.bsky.social A powerful case for how/why intro course sequences for physics and engineering undergrads can be updated to support students who did not take calculus in high school. physicstoday.aip.org/features/ref...

Had a lot of fun responding to these digital preservation questions. Neat to also see how @rfrank.bsky.social and so many other smart folks responded!

“Major climate change indicators broke records in 2024” excellent breif overview in @physicstoday.bsky.social of the recent @ametsoc.org State of the Climate report physicstoday.aip.org/news/major-c...

People’s stories matter. The people we most wish we had stories from are often too humble to think their stories matter. I explore this in a bit in “Shakespeare Got It Wrong: Jack Oliver’s Memoirs of a Geophysicist” for the Niels Bohr Library and Archives Blog. -> www.aip.org/library/ex-l...

“Five ways the second Trump term is reshaping climate science and policy” great in depth reporting from @physicstoday.bsky.social -> pubs.aip.org/physicstoday...

And Martinis? His dad was a refugee from Yugoslavia. repository.aip.org/node/129661

Was honored to get the chance to respond and engage with @shannonmattern.bsky.social’s insightful questions and observations on my last book in this conversation.

Great context and background on the winners of this year’s Nobel prize in physics.

Finished reading Shohini Ghose’s book “Her Space, Her Time: How Trailblazing Women Scientists Decoded the Hidden Universe.” I highly recommend the book to anyone interested in the physical sciences and their histories. -> mitpress.mit.edu/978026204831...

Finished reading @adambecker.bsky.social’s “More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity.” An amazing resource for understanding how the focus on AI relates to billionaires desires to colonize space and live forever.

Lots of updates and opportunities in this month's @aip.bsky.social history monthly newsletter! Learn about some new photo collections, grants for archives and historians of science, and articles on a number of major history of science exhibitions and programs www.aip.org/history/aip-...

Amid today's fast-moving news cycles, it can be hard to keep up with the rapid changes happening to federal climate science in the US. Here's a review of some of the big changes in the US since January. #physics #standupforscience

Great @physicstoday.bsky.social article covering how professional societies are supporting scientists to lobby effectively in response to the attacks on science -> pubs.aip.org/physicstoday...

Always excited to check out a @copystar.bsky.social talk! Don’t miss out on this one on libraries and LLMs.

Sudden policy change from NSF, saying only 1st year PhD students, or earlier, can apply to the GRFP. Second years are out of luck. (I got a GRF as a 2nd-year applicant, and it very much turbocharged my dissertation work; much more valuable than if I'd had it while still doing my coursework.)

At AIP we've launched a new policy research program to go deep on current questions and pull together more comprehensive pictures. Leading this work, Lindsay Milliken has produced her first public product, a primer on the new $100,000 fee on H-1B petitions.

How do decisions about big science projects get made? In the 1980s, it was still possible to think that it could be done by finding an influential person who could make it happen. But increasingly, having a formal, consultative process was regarded as necessary to secure buy-in. #histsci #scipol

"How AIP is Giving a Name to Mrs. Scientist" -> www.aip.org/mrs-scientist Excited to see this overview of some of the reparative description work that AIP's Niels Bohr Library and Archives team is doing with our photo collections.

"After Disruption shares a compelling summary of the problematic notions stemming from the digital age into memory institutions, and it offers hope and inspiration for memory workers to pave the way for a more just culture beyond our current one." Thanks Jaycee Chapman for the review.

Fun to wake up to this thoughtful & positive review of my book, After Disruption: A Future for Cultural Memory in the journal College and Research Libraries. Read the review here -> crl.acrl.org/index.php/cr... Open access copy of the book here -> www.fulcrum.org/concern/mono...

We’re not just planning for a digital future: we’re living in a digital present. How do we make a sustainable cultural memory? @TJOwens.bsky.social & @ShannonMattern.bsky.social discuss in the #booktalk AFTER DISRUPTION. 🗓 Thurs Sept 25 🕖 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET 🎟️ www.eventbrite.com/e/1633230118...

2025 marks the end of three decades of work in history of physics at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. We talked to Alex Blum, who led the 7-year Final Theory history research group there, about what they learned, how they worked, and how it can be a model for future #histsci.

📣 AIP's Niels Bohr Library and Archives is collecting personal stories from scientists, engineers, students & others in the physical sciences whose careers have been impacted by recent U.S. policy & funding changes. Learn more about how to get involved here -> www.aip.org/library/ex-l...

Great new piece on the history of politicization of science through the 1953 AD-X2 battery additive controversy from Joe Martin in Physics Today. A powerful example of the role scientific societies have and continue to play in advocating for scientific integrity. pubs.aip.org/physicstoday...

“Out of the Box: The People Behind the Niels Bohr Library & Archives” provides a fun chance to get to know the librarians and archivists working to preserve and support research on the history of the physical sciences -> www.aip.org/library/ex-l...

The August edition of the AIP History Monthly is out—and it’s packed with exciting updates, new resources, and ways to get involved in preserving and interpreting the history of the physical sciences. -> www.aip.org/history/aip-...

On September 25, at 1pm ET, I'll be talking with @tjowens.bsky.social about his book, After Disruption. I especially want to know how we think about the values informing cultural memory practice amidst such ubiquitous, nefarious disruption — and plan ahead for the aftermath. Hosted by @archive.org.

How are new physics grads actually using AI tools? Until now, we didn’t really know. 40% of new physics PhDs report routinely using AI tools on the job and nearly 20% report that their work involves developing AI models. Read the full report here -> www.aip.org/statistics/a...

Great read for anyone interested in relationships between big science projects, science policy, and land/landscapes.

Humbled to find myself among this years University of Wisconsin Luminary Award recipients. The award “recognizes alumni who serve as aspirational examples for others through their accomplishments in the areas of leadership, discovery, progress, and service.”

“It’s not “divisive” to teach about division. It’s divisive to bury it.” Great piece from James Grossman.

"Lloyd Espenschied’s Library of Electrical History" great new post from Karina Cooper. Fascinating story of how a set of rare books originally donated to Bell Labs ultimately became the core of the rare book collection at the American Institute of Physics.

Great new piece from Toni Feder in @physicstoday.bsky.social on the impact of the tariffs on the physical sciences.

Blown away by Tatiana Erukhimova, Jonathan Perry, and Isabella Oaks's talks on the Impact of Outreach on Physics Students at the AAPT summer meeting. Their in depth research shows how valuable informal outreach experiences are for motivation, belonging, competence, and a growth mindset.

Lots of great activity from the library and history teams at AIP in the July monthly update. Newly digitized rare books, improved and updated collection finding aids, a new oral history, and a series of great posts and projects. Read all about it here www.aip.org/history/july...

Join AIP in documenting & celebrating women’s contributions to the physical sciences! I’m thrilled to announce that AIP has received a generous grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to support this initiative. Please share this widely with anyone that might be interested in getting involved.

4,000 NASA workers are leaving through deferred resignation. "The cuts amount to an estimated 20% of NASA's workforce" www.npr.org/2025/07/26/n...

📣📣 BOOK NEWS 📣📣 I'm excited to share the cover and release date of Book #2, #EdgeOfSpaceTime, which is now available for PREORDER!! You can order from ANY bookstore, including your local indie! More details on preordering here: www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/746817... What's the book about? 🧵

Great weekly AIP History Update today from @williamthomas.bsky.social on a new book on The Board of Longitude. It's a great example of how discussions of science and technology policy can/should engage more with historical scholarship -> www.aip.org/history/book...

I love this photo collection as a way to document the acts of science and scientists for the future. 🔭🧪

AIP’s 30k+ image collection began with scientists’ personal snapshots 📸. That tradition lives on—now with a one-page digital upload tool built for how we shoot & share digital photos today. Help build this shared collection by submitting a photo for consideration -> www.aip.org/library/ex-l...

Interesting that the while the house committee is proposing big cuts (35%) to NEA and NEHs budgets those budgets are way higher than the “shutdown the agencies” levels of funding in the president’s budget. -> www.americantheatre.org/2025/07/14/h...

Federal investment has been the backbone of college and university research and development activities for 70+ years. Data from NCSES show that the federal funding has represented more than half of all R&D at colleges and universities every single year since 1953. 🔗 ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf25345

🔭 Last month, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory wowed the world with its first ultra-high-resolution images. Ahead of Rubin’s 97th on July 23rd, @rebeccacharbon.bsky.social spotlights Rubin's 1989 oral history with Alan Lightman in this week’s AIP History Weekly. -> www.aip.org/history/oral...