Meet our #alumna Anna Fontcuberta i Morral, a distinguished #physicist and the newly appointed President of @epfl. Her research focuses on the #materialsscience and engineering of semiconductor #nanostructures, specifically #nanowires: http://go.tum.de/728563

N. Righetti

Sam Altman claims that science will be finished by AI in a few years. This is reminiscent of 20th century scientists who said similar things, but still, science is far from finished. I think the more we know about science, the more unanswered questions we will be left with.

Happy birthday to #physicist Harriet Brooks (1876 - 1933) who discovered atomic recoil, Radon & recognized radioactive elements could undergo chains of transmutations into a series of new elements. #nuclear #physics⁠
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She was Rutherford’s 1st grad student at McGill. After publishing her results in 1899 she completed her MSc in 1901 on “Damping of Electrical Oscillations,” before embarking on #radioactivity research.⁠
⁠ #linocut #printmaking #sciart #womenInSTEM #histsci

Happy birthday to German-American theoretical #physicist Maria Goeppert Mayer (1906-1972), the 2nd woman to win the Nobel Prize for #physics. As the series of increasingly large atomic nuclei grows with additional nucleons (protons p & neutrons n) from hydrogen to transuranic elements, there are points where the binding energy of the next nucleon is a lot lower than the last. So there are a series of quantum “magic numbers” (a term coined by Wigner):

James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879) was born #OTD, 13 June. As a physicist, he ranks alongside Newton & Einstein (“He achieved greatness unequalled”—Max Planck; “I stand on the shoulders of Maxwell”—Albert Einstein).

Maxwell also wrote poetry: “Rigid Body Sings” is based on “Comin’ Through the Rye” by Robert Burns

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45774/in-memory-of-edward-wilson-who-repented-of-what-was-in-his-mind-to-write-after-section

Happy birthday to #physicist James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)! He dreamt up his demon to deal with the very odd 2nd Law of Thermodynamics (which is not a law like others, and can not be derived from first priciples). It states that two bodies of different temperature brought together in a closed system will reach thermal equilibrium; or, you cannot use a cold thing to heat a hot thing;
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#sciart #linocut #printmaker #MaxwellsDemon #ImaginaryFriends #thermodynamics #mastoArt

Happy birthday #physicist Chien-shiung Wu (1912-1997), who came up with a truly beautiful experiment to test whether the weak force conserves parity (whether beta decay would be the same if reflected in the mirror)! In my print on the left I show Wu in her lab & a schematic diagram of her experiment. On the right I show her reflection, as in the mirror, & the mirror reflection of the experimental set-up & the shocking result, 1/n

The #Universe is suspiciously like a Computer Simulation, #Physicist says.

The Universe Is 'Suspiciously'...

Debate erupts around #Microsoft’s #quantumcomputing claims
#Physicists cast doubt on #Majorana1 chip
Henry Legg, #physicist at Univ of St. Andrews who had two preprints challenging the work, attacked. “It doesn’t look like Majoranas, at least to me,” Legg said. “Any company claiming to have a topological qubit in 2025 is essentially selling a fairy tale [that] undermines the field of #quantum computation … and public confidence in science.”
https://www.science.org/content/article/debate-erupts-around-microsoft-s-blockbuster-quantum-computing-claims
https://archive.ph/PD8mx

This bugs the physicist in me each time I see this... WTF is "low side current monitoring"? I remember vaguely understanding it once but I forgot...

https://www.adafruit.com/product/5832

C'est comme les amplis différentiels qui ne sont pas vraiment différentiels (ils ne mesurent pas la différence de potentiel entre leurs entrées V+ et V-), pour ça, il faut un "instrumentation amplifier" <sigh> ah les ingénieurs...

Happy birthday to British #engineer, #mathematician, #physicist & #inventor Hertha Ayrton (1854-1923). I’ve shown her in my #linocut with a diagram of the dividers from her 1st of 26 (!) patents, one of her diagrams about the origin & growth of ripple marks & one of her diagrams of an electric arc lamp (a subject on which she literally wrote the textbook).⁠
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Born Phoebe Sarah Marks, she was the 3rd of 8 children

Born on this day: #physicist J. R. Oppenheimer (1904-1967). While best remembered for his role in the Manhattan Project, he was a giant of 20th century theoretical physics, nominated for a Nobel 3 times. ⁠
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In 1927 he & Max Born greatly simplified how we predict electrons behaviour within atoms. The Born-Oppenheimer or adiabatic approximation is based on the observation that electrons are 1000s times lighter than nuclei, 1/n
#sciart #linocut #printmaking #histsci

Happy birthday to French mathematician, physicist and philosopher Marie-Sophie Germain (1776 – 1831), known as Sophie. She taught herself mathematics using books in her father’s library and by corresponding with leading mathematicians of her day, including Lagrange, Legendre and Gauss, initially using the pseudonym Monsieur LeBlanc. 1/n
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#linocut #printmaking #sciart #mathart #SophieGermain #ChladniFigures #mathematician #Fermat #womenInSTEM #physicist

American Physical Society, did you miss "Science Explorer: ADS for All #NASAScience" at #APSsummit25?

#ADSabs SciX, an #openscience #digitallibrary providing #physicist w/ advanced search, visualization, & citation tools!

Access #physics, #heliophysics, #earthscience, #planetaryscience, #astronomy & more w/ familiar ADS features!

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15054991

American Physical Society, Did you miss did you miss "The Physics in the Astrophysics Data System" at #APSsummit25 last week?

SciX #digitallibrary (based on ADS) is the ultimate #openscience resource for #physicist — 13M+ journal articles, preprints, conference proceedings & more!

Advanced search functions, citation metrics, & visualizations that map research connections make your literature reviews more efficient & comprehensive.

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15054921

Are We Inside a #BlackHole?
Wonky #Galaxy Movements Suggest It’s Possible, #Physicist Says

https://gizmodo.com/a-surprising-number-of-galaxies-rotating-in-lockstep-could-mean-were-in-a-black-hole-2000575624

So everything ultimately when you zoom in close enough is just physics. Matter is made of atoms and atoms are made of particles and particles are just bits of energy moving around excitedly. I might have missed a few layers but good enough for a layperson discussion.

I know there have been experiments to cool things to absolute zero, and I know we've gotten pretty close but not quite.

But what would happen at absolute zero, or do we even know for certain? If those bits of energy stop moving, do they cease to exist? Would the macro object just poof?