Teaching started again in October, and likewise our joint program #OuterSpaces with the Kunsthaus and the institute of philosophy, which shows up as outreach below. Also that we finished two papers in October :) #ProfAtWork Email (mostly administration): 23.7 % Teaching in a classroom: 15.5%

Axel Maas@axelmaas.eurosky.social · last mo.

This month was dominated by workshops, but also a bit more time to do actually something by myself. But now the semester starts, so expect teaching becoming very dominant soon #ProfAtWork Talks: 23.6% Email (mostly administration): 19.0% Research by myself: 8.6%

It is still hard to see, but one can now glimpse the next (receded) level growing, and first signs of even the one above. Also, one more crane is already gone as well. #GCP

Axel Maas@axelmaas.eurosky.social · last mo.

It starts to become hard to see what happens on top of the #GCP, as my vantage point does not grow with it, and the next level recedes somewhat to leave space for the terrace. But you can glimpse progress. Next month this is probably better to see, when they go on to the next level.

Given that I have many discussions with students about what understanding is, and when they have achieved it, I think this here is a nice step to at least define the minimum necessary to claim understanding.

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ@olivia.science · 2d ago

this is such a good way to think about understanding Hills, A. (2016), Understanding Why. Noûs, 50: 661-688. doi.org/10.1111/nous...

This week is very busy, and to make it even more busy, we just launched not one, but two new papers, each breaking new grounds in simulating complex systems, which contain the #Higgs, the W/Z and a proxy for leptons: arxiv.org/abs/2610.33611 arxiv.org/abs/2610.40208

Spectroscopy of the SU(2) scalar-fermion-gauge system under the influence of the Brout-Englert-Higgs effect

We investigate the ground state spectrum of a dynamical scalar-fermion-gauge system with an SU(2) gauge group, a scalar doublet, and two degenerate generations of vectorial fermions under the influenc...

arxiv.org

And here we go! #OuterSpaces

Axel Maas@axelmaas.eurosky.social · last wk.

Tonight at 17:00 at the #KunsthausGraz we have our first public event, where an artist, a philosopher, and a physicist engage on their different perspectives of a concept (this time: liminalities/borders). Its free, and everyone is welcome! www.museum-joanneum.at/kunsthaus-gr... Part of #OutSpaces

Tonight at 17:00 at the #KunsthausGraz we have our first public event, where an artist, a philosopher, and a physicist engage on their different perspectives of a concept (this time: liminalities/borders). Its free, and everyone is welcome! www.museum-joanneum.at/kunsthaus-gr... Part of #OutSpaces

Take note of this new version of research integrity standards from the Netherlands. Well worthwhile to read.

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ@olivia.science · last wk.

So nice to see this out! > The five core principles – honesty, Scrupulousness, transparency, independence and responsibility – remain unchanged. www.nwo.nl/en/news/revi... Image from: doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

Yesterday the opening of the first exhibition of our cooperation between Kunsthaus Graz and @uni-graz.at started. So much more to come, with the first interactive public event next Wednesday #OuterSpaces

I have openings for a PhD student and a 3-year postdoc in quantum gravity with CDT simulations @uni-graz.at : inspirehep.net/jobs/3215789 inspirehep.net/jobs/3215787 You will have the opportunity to test very fundamental questions in matter-gravity interactions!

Felix Pressler, a PhD student of mine, has created a nice animation of one of our quantum universes. This has a "cosmological time", i.e. you have a way to count time. The movie runs in this cosmological time, and shows the spatial shape, approximated by discrete building blocks (called simplices).

Welcome back, Felix Pressler! He did already the master with us on quantum gravity using CDT, and now he is back for more, even with a self-funded position by the @oeaw.bsky.social. His project will revolve around interactions of self-bound gravitons, aiming to get the running Newton coupling.

This month was dominated by workshops, but also a bit more time to do actually something by myself. But now the semester starts, so expect teaching becoming very dominant soon #ProfAtWork Talks: 23.6% Email (mostly administration): 19.0% Research by myself: 8.6%

Axel Maas@axelmaas.eurosky.social · 2mo ago

August had a workshop and filling a postdoc position (news on that soon). Thus, quite a bit of administration, talks and politics. Email (mostly administration): 21.3% Administration: 17.4% Talks: 9.3% Working directly with PhD/Master/Bachelor student: 7.8% Catching up with the arXiv: 7.1%

It starts to become hard to see what happens on top of the #GCP, as my vantage point does not grow with it, and the next level recedes somewhat to leave space for the terrace. But you can glimpse progress. Next month this is probably better to see, when they go on to the next level.

Axel Maas@axelmaas.eurosky.social · 2mo ago

This time the progress is less visible. On some sides you can already see the lecture halls taking shape, including the rows for the listeners. Also, on top of the building things happen. I will have a chance to visit the top in about two weeks, hopefully having some interesting photos then #GCP

Welcome everyone to the winter semester @uni-graz.at - looking very much forward to meeting you! Together with someone from philosophy, I will teach this semester a course on aesthetics and science, open to all students. I am very curious what I will learn. And also advanced math and BSM physics 🙂

You can hear me tonight talking about the #ClimateCollapse and our local activities to prepare for it in Graz in the format "Von unten" of @radiohelsinki.bsky.social : helsinki.at/program/1502...

VON UNTEN im Gespräch: Sendetermin 21.09.2026 17:00 bis 18:00

Kollaps-Café Graz – Das Ende der Welt, wie wir sie kennen – Aber was tun?

helsinki.at

I indeed have become the type of professor, who does not manages to have a chat message or an email without typo, because being always too quick, always already too much occupied with the next thing 😞

Yesterday, we had the opportunity to visit the current construction site of the #GCP, which reached the terrace level. With great views, this will be open to the public, and will have quite a bit of greens on it. A place to meet and discuss, and an opportunity for thinking.

Congratulations to my master student Patrick Jenny, for successfully defending his thesis on electroweak PDFs from the lattice! He did the first ever ab-initio determination from first principles of these PDFs. A paper is coming, and you can read his thesis at particle.uni-graz.at/en/structure...

August had a workshop and filling a postdoc position (news on that soon). Thus, quite a bit of administration, talks and politics. Email (mostly administration): 21.3% Administration: 17.4% Talks: 9.3% Working directly with PhD/Master/Bachelor student: 7.8% Catching up with the arXiv: 7.1%

Axel Maas@axelmaas.eurosky.social · 3mo ago

The July was dominated by the conference I attended in the beginning, as a consequence of the holidays I took in the second half of July 😀 Listening to talks: 20.0% Email (mostly administration): 14.0% Working directly with PhD/Master/Bachelor student: 13.3% Paper writing: 9.2%

This time the progress is less visible. On some sides you can already see the lecture halls taking shape, including the rows for the listeners. Also, on top of the building things happen. I will have a chance to visit the top in about two weeks, hopefully having some interesting photos then #GCP

Axel Maas@axelmaas.eurosky.social · 3mo ago

Good thread explaining yesterdays LZ announcement on a possible hint which may be dark matter (or not). Note: I have been born after 1970, so the universe hates me (see the thread for an explanation of this statement).

Matthew Buckley@physicsmatt.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Quick thoughts on LZ's dark matter result. Because I know that's what everyone is waiting for. Usual caveat that I'm a theorist and I don't build experiments, which is good for me and for the experiments. I do write papers on dark matter direct detection, though some of those gears are a bit rusty.

Signed.

Prof Julia Steinberger 🌹🌱🌍 #ClimateAction #Fightfascism@jksteinberger.bsky.social · 2mo ago

⚠️ 🌍 ⚠️ We stand with humanity: A scientist statement to confront climate destruction⚠️ 🌍 ⚠️ ✒️ 🙏 If you are an academic or healthcare professional, please consider signing. 🙏✒️ framaforms.org/we-stand-wit...

Important thread on why we, as researchers, cannot be neutral regarding politics. Any attack on some part of science (or scientists) with the intent to replace it with something unscientific, will eventually be an attack on all fields. There are enough examples in history, even for basic physics.

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ@olivia.science · 2mo ago

> From day one, everything pointed to the fact that Jason Arday, the Black neurodivergent Cambridge professor who died in August 2026, was being subjected to racist and ableist harassment — exactly the kind of targeting he himself had described. docs.google.com/document/d/1... 1/n

Science, even very fundamental one, is never apolitical and detached from society. And in an ever more extreme world fuelled by greed, hate, and avoidance, also we will be affected ever more drastically. Thus, being an activist to stop escalation is a necessity today to be able to pursue science.

Prof Anna Watts@profannawatts.bsky.social · 3mo ago

😱 www.science.org/content/arti...

There is something big coming, connecting #Art, #Philosophy and #ParticlePhysics, a cooperation of the #KunsthausGraz and @uni-graz.at: www.museum-joanneum.at/kunsthaus-gr... There will be much more on this project of us in the next months. It is exciting to connect what I do to art and philosophy.

On my way to ESI Vienna for a workshop program. Meet me and discuss with me. At the same time, you can meet my PhD student George Wieland in Helsinki at #SEWM26, showing our all new results on the #Higgs at temperatures like in the early universe. More on this soon.

This long thread is worthwhile to read. You will then see the described effects everywhere, if you not already did. It is also annoying that as scientists we know exactly in our subject about the issues, but we far too often fail to recognize it in the way we do science (or interact with society).

By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C)@doctorow.pluralistic.net · 3mo ago

One of my favorite rhetorical and analytical moves is joining things (showing that different, seemingly unrelated ideas are part of the same phenomenon) and taking them apart (resolving paradoxes by demonstrating that what appears like a contradictory thing is different things, lumped together). 1/

Welcome Elisa Romanini, who will do her PhD thesis with us on quantum gravity, developing a new computational framework: particle.uni-graz.at/en/structure...

The July was dominated by the conference I attended in the beginning, as a consequence of the holidays I took in the second half of July 😀 Listening to talks: 20.0% Email (mostly administration): 14.0% Working directly with PhD/Master/Bachelor student: 13.3% Paper writing: 9.2%

Axel Maas@axelmaas.eurosky.social · 4mo ago

June was still dominated by interviews and a conference, but also still teaching. Thus, it is some non-standard mix #ProfAtWork Email (mostly administration): 16.1% Administration: 13.4% Teaching in a classroom: 8.9% Listening to talks: 8.6% Working directly with PhD/Master/Bachelor student: 7.2%

And another level! Now it really goes up fast #GCP

Axel Maas@axelmaas.eurosky.social · 4mo ago

Wow. Basically an entire level appeared within a month. There is real progress for the #GCP. They promised a public event on the visiting platform of the construction site in autumn. I start to believe that this is possible.