Jennifer Rittenhouse West, PhD
@rittenhousewest.bsky.social
Theoretical particle physicist running around this world. She/her. Anti-fascist. Will you be pulling up? Me: https://sites.google.com/view/rittenhousewest Me, nerdier (& most repos private, sadly!): https://github.com/rittenhousewest
More physics travel 🩵 from the most beautiful relaxing workshop I've ever been to in my life & I've been to wonderful intense places...Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton especially. Here is Malham Cove from my workshop in the Yorkshire Dales a few days ago...🩵...I met some absolute darlings 💎
Things that slay me about this painting: the horizontal strokes of the barn/house 2-step roof. The echo of horizontal strokes of the road in front. I cannot tell you how much I love this. I love oil paints and brushes in a very visceral way.
Great art on Bluesky@art.feediverse.org · last wk.Corsican Landscape, 1898 #matisse #impressionism
Traveling all all all around for physics, tonight my last night in darling Glasgow, Scotland is a great beauty, and while flying from Italy to Scotland I had to hop to Munich then Zurich then Glasgow...the only good thing from the hopping in the wee wee hours was that the mountains were MAGNIFICENT.
Who should decide what science gets funded: scientists or political appointees? Right now, it's scientists. A new OMB rule would hand that power to political appointees instead. Comment by July 13 to stop it. ⬇️ www.planetary.org/ombgrantrules
Advocacy Action Center
The Planetary Society is organizing a new space constituency that is educated, empowered, and loud.
planetary.org
Comments can be, perhaps should be?, anonymous. I put my name to them. The main point, which I was told during a policy talk at a workshop on Saturday, is that unique comments must be taken into consideration. The policy physicist noted: over 50k comments now and normally the # is in the hundreds ⚡
Katie Mack@astrokatie.com · 3w agoThere is still time to submit your comment and tell the government that you don't want US research to be completely destroyed by politicians meddling in individual grants. You can submit your comments here: www.regulations.gov/commenton/OM...
I'm in Scotland & just submitted. It is 22:00 here (light out, dusky, so beautiful) so there are at least 6 hours left to leave comments on whatever section you dissent with - anyone on Earth can submit comments & apparently they must be addressed (but must be in our own words). I wrote on 200.205.
Sarah Tuttle@niais.bsky.social · 3w agoThis is the link to make a comment about the proposed OMB rule change. This rule change does many things, most most centrally it effectively moves the power of the purse from the legislative to the executive branch. www.regulations.gov/document/OMB... This is incredibly dangerous.
Agreed. I was just wrong too. Upsetting on all levels. If he withdraws by 07/13 apparently we can find another candidate. Come through Maine, come through 🛟
End Citizens United@endcitizensunited.bsky.social · last mo.Today, we're rescinding our endorsement of Maine U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner and calling on him to immediately withdraw from the race. See the full statement below.
Hm. Utterly plausible. If Till Sawala's work is correct ("I show that the apparent anomaly disappears when the correct comoving distance scale is used") then the Standard Model of Cosmology holds steady. Not quite as fiercely as the Standard Model of Particle Physics but very hard to crack. Love it.
Daniel Pomarède@pomarede.bsky.social · last mo.Well, that was fast arxiv.org/abs/2607.01172 #Cosmology
Oh, so you don’t approve of FDR? You don’t approve of going after the trusts and obscenely wealthy? You don’t approve of Social Security, and building a nation that works? WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU CALLING YOURSELVES DEMOCRATS YOU TWATWAFFLES
The Washington Post@washingtonpost.com · last mo.Thirteen Democratic House members and candidates announced their support for a centrist initiative aimed at pushing back against the party’s tilt toward democratic socialism.
Belfast stepping up just like Minnesota. The battle against fascism and xenophobia is worldwide.
Lee Hurley@hleehurley.com · 2mo agoHundreds of strangers in Belfast working together. Doing shopping, providing accommodation, driving kids to school, people to hospital appointments. Have just been told of a woman close to us who hasn't left her house since Monday so we'll be sorting her out today and getting her anything she needs
One of the many reasons so many of us fight for justice in the US. In honor of Medgar Evers. #tdih 1963 WWII vet Medgar Evers was murdered by white supremacist in driveway outside his home in Jackson.
grundy yoldaş 🇵🇸🇺🇳@2ez2dance.bsky.social · 2mo ago"And they laid him in his grave while the bugle sounded clear Laid him in his grave when the victory was near While we waited for the future, for freedom through the land The country gained a killer and the country lost a man." A luta continua
Second generation periodic table of the elements 💘 Only charm-strange quarks. Some day, people are going to do this!! Then third gen!!
Jennifer Rittenhouse West, PhD@rittenhousewest.bsky.social · 2mo agoI'm so glad you do! I feel strongly about it because it is easier to study them in the context of 2nd gen neutron, 2nd gen proton, excited 2nd gen neutron, etc. Connections & insights come easy: 2nd gen neutron + 2nd gen proton => 2nd gen deutron!! There are shared properties and predictions!
All of this LHCb work is brilliant, love it. Naming patterns, do not love. They obscure identities! Eg, the ssc baryon called Omega^0_c. This is a 2nd generation neutron! Gens are (u d), (c s), (t b). 3rd gen neutron is tbb. Lots of cross-gen hybrids. But many baryons are fancy protons and neutrons!
Patrick Koppenburg 🐧@koppenburg.ch · 2mo agoWe now have all particles in this multiplet. Job done!
"There’s the famous saying that when you’re a carpenter, every problem looks like a nail. I guess when a rising politician centers her brand on her time as a Navy helicopter pilot, every crisis starts to look like Iraq."
Will Bunch@willbunch.bsky.social · 2mo agoGov. Mikie Sherrill's mishandling of protests outside the Newark ICE detention center, with violent state troopers running amok, is a national embarrassment To make it worse, Sherrill invoked the vile "outside agitator" trope of 1960s segregationists My new column www.inquirer.com/opinion/miki...
Truth to Power. Grazie mille to the witnesses outside of Delaney Hall 💜.
Sophie Hurwitz@hurwitz.bsky.social · 2mo agoOutside Delaney Hall today.
The points Chanda makes. Crystal vision. "Because these guys don’t have tattoos: they have missiles and fighter jets and a target population that they’ve been murdering. On balance I think that’s probably worse, but hey I’m just a Black Jew who’s thought about it!"
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌@chanda.blacksky.app · 2mo agoThe people who are “concerned” about the Nazi tattoo and sexts but not this are telling on themselves and what they’re saying is that some Nazis are fine by them, actually
I love this ⚡ Every label conjures up so much!
Rochelle@uberwensch.bsky.social · 3mo agoThe trick is, when among mathematicians, to say you are a physicist so that they forgive you for not knowing very much math. Then, when among physicists, say you are a mathematician so that they forgive you for not knowing very much physics. In especially dire cases I might say I am a philosopher.
Still studying, Prof. Stokes' opinion is useful...also, understanding the lay of the land (not who to vote for, but what has been changing with the candidates and the people's choices) via the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies is helpful: escholarship.org/uc/item/5s88...
escholarship.org
Leah Stokes@leahstokes.bsky.social · 2mo agoVoted for Steyer today for Governor of California. And it felt great! The list of corporations spending big against him include: Chevron, PG&E, SCE, SoCalGas, Meta, and the oil and gas drillers! With enemies like these, it shows he's willing to stand for the people. That's Steyer.
In order to take a few deep breaths, here is a little beautiful Torinese garden on the way to the physics department....the tiny bright blue of the painted metal chairs is so pretty 💙
Excellent. I'm up on Maine, on Texas, but ignorant on California which is where I actually vote!! Disgraceful, but I have 5 days to study the governor candidates - my superficial glance from a month ago was..um....beyond negative, across the board. But let's see what I've missed.
Acyn@acyn.bsky.social · 2mo agoTalarico: I’m an eighth-generation Texan. I’ve been eating barbecue since before Ken Paxton’s first indictment. And if all they have on me is lying about me being a vegan, I feel pretty good about our chances this November.
The necessity of paying Black women writers and artists, always but especially now: substack.com/@shaystewart...
Shay Stewart-Bouley | Substack
Non-profit extraordinaire, creator of the blog, Blackgirlinmaine. Professional troublemaker, do-gooder, raconteur and anti-racist.
substack.com
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌@chanda.blacksky.app · 2mo agoThanks for chipping in financially! I know Shay is one of the people who has been hit hard by the attacks on Black women’s employment over the last year.
A brilliant and deep essay on Platner in Maine from "Shay’s Cogitations:A Detour From Black Girl in Maine." Changed my mind on Platner's candidacy, and what a superficial analysis I had done before, especially with the Fetterman comparison. We can pay for SHAY STEWART-BOULEY's writing, & I did.
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌@chanda.blacksky.app · 2mo agoFrom @blackgirlinmaine.bsky.social, in a piece where she shares the words of other Black and POC Mainers who said things like: “White people love to tell Black people how they should respond and react to racism without checking themselves.”
Can’t believe that Andy Kim is in two of the most haunting pictures of the last few years.
Elizabeth Cronise McLaughlin@ecmclaughlin.bsky.social · 2mo agoThis photo of Andy Kim in the moments before ICE gassed everyone at Delaney Hall is going into the history books. We need more of this from our electeds.
I mean..."they cannot and will not be reigned in by democracy, whatever’s left of it." Breaking my heart.
molly conger@socialistdogmom.bsky.social · 2mo agothey’re shooting crowd control munitions at crowds that include multiple members of congress, the governor, and a sitting united states senator. they fired pepper balls at the senator. they cannot and will not be reigned in by democracy, whatever’s left of it.
Oh my goodness I love it!! I was laughing like what is that lumpy monstrosity?? 💝 The Perseverance rover took this from Mars in 2022, & Phobos the darling lumpy moon is only 11.5 km across - so tiny - but it really really close to Mars, that is why it is enormous as it passes in front of the sun!!
Daniel Pomarède@pomarede.bsky.social · 2mo agoAstronomy Picture of the Day A Martian Eclipse: Phobos Crosses the Sun Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, ASU MSSS, SSI apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap26052... #APOD #Mars 🔭🧪
I will always be inspired and infuriated by this. Sempre, sempre, sempre. The way a creature is treated is not an indicator of their worth. Punto. Finito la musica.
Dr. Mar@boldnewme.bsky.social · 3mo agoKatalin Karikó is one of the most extraordinary scientific stories of this era. A girl from a modest Hungarian household helped develop technology that saved millions of lives worldwide. In 2023, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for discoveries that enabled effective mRNA vaccines.
