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Lyndie Chiou

@lyndie.bsky.social

Science writer | Scientific American | New Scientist | NYTimes | Quanta Magazine | #Black Stories on physics, math, astronomy! Also plays trombone.

441 Posts2456 Follower594 Folgt
Lyndie Chiou@lyndie.bsky.social · 2w ago

I interviewed 99-year old Joan Birman who must be the oldest author on a major breakthrough paper. As an added bonus: her team beat the guys trying to use AI! Please read and share about this human triumph: www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-... #science #math 👩‍🔬

How a 99-year-old mathematician unraveled a century-old braid mystery

Joan Birman popularized the Burau representation problem decades ago. Now she and two colleagues have a proof that reveals brand new insights into the geometry of braids

scientificamerican.com

Lyndie Chiou@lyndie.bsky.social · 2w ago

I interviewed 99-year old Joan Birman who must be the oldest author on a major breakthrough paper. As an added bonus: her team beat the guys trying to use AI! Please read and share about this human triumph: www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-... #science #math 👩‍🔬

How a 99-year-old mathematician unraveled a century-old braid mystery

Joan Birman popularized the Burau representation problem decades ago. Now she and two colleagues have a proof that reveals brand new insights into the geometry of braids

scientificamerican.com

Lyndie Chiou@lyndie.bsky.social · 3w ago

I had a surprising conversation. A NASA engineer told me he was stuck at home early in the pandemic when his power went out and he couldn't find batteries for his calculator. So he used his slide rule. For one whole evening. Power was restored the next morning.

Lyndie Chiou@lyndie.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Google photos auto-created an album of "photos of me" over the years.... and included this particular one 😂 Fortunately, my Lego doppelganger is incapable of implicating me in any real-world mischief!

Me, if I was a Lego figurine, battling a flying lion with a dagger and an axe.
Lyndie Chiou@lyndie.bsky.social · 6mo ago

I just realized that today is Chinese New Year, the 1st day of Ramadan, AND Fat Tuesday. That means the Chinese new moon lined up with the Ramadan crescent and also fell exactly the right amount of time before the Easter full moon. An extremely rare lineup of 3 major moon-based traditions!

Waxing moon -- we had a stormy day (with lightning and thunder!) so this is one I took about a month ago.
Lyndie Chiou@lyndie.bsky.social · 6mo ago

International Women in Science Day fell on Feb 10th. I had the honor of being featured in a blog post by the smart telescope company Vaonis (the brand of telescope I use)! vaonis.com/blogs/travel... 👩🏾‍🔬🔭

International Day of Women and Girls in Science - Portraits

Four stories to celebrate science and curiosity. On the occasion of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, we would like to celebrate those who help advance science, and those who make i...

vaonis.com

Lyndie Chiou@lyndie.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Just like the snake-haired Medusa of Greek mythology, this nebula's head writhes with tangled thick filaments, leading to its name, the Medusa Nebula. The result of a star cooling into a white dwarf. Image credit: my tiny telescope #science #astronomy 🔭👩🏾‍🔬

An oblong red gas cloud with stringy filaments against a black background. There's some blue too from OIII emissions.
Michael Kinyon@profkinyon.bsky.social · 6mo ago

"...Aristarchus has brought out a book consisting of certain hypotheses... His hypotheses are that the fixed stars and the sun remain unmoved, that the earth revolves about the sun on the circumference of a circle, the sun lying in the middle of the orbit..." -- Archimedes, _The Sand Reckoner_

Lyndie Chiou@lyndie.bsky.social · 6mo ago

See the solitary bright crater on the lower left? It's named after Aristarchus of Samos, who proposed that the Earth orbits the sun 1,800 years before Copernicus. An unbelievably insightful idea for its day (sadly ignored). Image taken tonight by my tiny telescope. #science #history 🔭👩🏾‍🔬

An 87% full moon with a bright spot on the lower left.
CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️@rami.spaceaustralia.com · 6mo ago

Gorgeous image! Can you believe, that in the next weeks to a few months, there are going to be four humans which are going to go in a spaceship and sail around the other side of this other world that just hangs in our sky. Go look at the Moon. Four people will be on the other side of it soon.

Lyndie Chiou@lyndie.bsky.social · 6mo ago

See the solitary bright crater on the lower left? It's named after Aristarchus of Samos, who proposed that the Earth orbits the sun 1,800 years before Copernicus. An unbelievably insightful idea for its day (sadly ignored). Image taken tonight by my tiny telescope. #science #history 🔭👩🏾‍🔬

An 87% full moon with a bright spot on the lower left.
Lyndie Chiou@lyndie.bsky.social · 6mo ago

See the solitary bright crater on the lower left? It's named after Aristarchus of Samos, who proposed that the Earth orbits the sun 1,800 years before Copernicus. An unbelievably insightful idea for its day (sadly ignored). Image taken tonight by my tiny telescope. #science #history 🔭👩🏾‍🔬

An 87% full moon with a bright spot on the lower left.
Lyndie Chiou@lyndie.bsky.social · 7mo ago

The beautiful Markarian chain, a drooping string of distant galaxies. And the loner who refuses to join the party, M87 on the lower left, hiding a supermassive black hole inside its heart. Image credit: my tiny telescope #science #astronomy 🔭👩🏾‍🔬

A drooping string of glowing galaxies. They only appear to line up as seen from Earth. If you were able to look from a different angle, they wouldn't appear to be spaced so closely together. On the lower left is M87, a bright galaxy with a supermassive black hole. It coincides with the dark-matter-dominated gravitational center of the Virgo Cluster.