Just watched The Sheep Detectives. It was flocking good. Unbleatable. It really had the chops. (And I'm not just saying that cos my brother worked on it hehehe)
Tom Rivlin
@tomrivlin.com
Vienna-based former Londoner. Quantum postdoc in TU Wien's @quitphysics.info group. (Running their bsky account!) Previously Weizmann, UCL, Imperial. Science writer for SciShow, bylines with PBS Space Time, New Scientist. H/h
Basically the same opinion for season 2. Was it good? No. Would I recommend it? No. But did I enjoy it? Would I watch more? Sure, yeah
Tom Rivlin@tomrivlin.com · 2y agoNetflix Avatar... not all that good but honestly a lot better than I was expecting. It was fun, and had some cool moments despite lots of clunky writing. It's clear lots of love went into it, but it didn't really answer the question of "what was the point of making this?"
All those years of German classes worth it to appreciate how funny Graf Mülltonnengesicht sounds hahaha
Leonardo Carella@leonardocarella.bsky.social · 4w agoGraf Mülltonnengesicht
Unfortunately, a stunned Paris is how they all got into this whole mess to begin with
Pop Crave@popcrave.com · 4w ago‘The Odyssey’ women Zendaya, Anne Hathaway, Lupita Nyong'o, and Charlize Theron stun in Paris.
Anyway yes I just stepped outside and oh fuck it's so hot I'm melting
Tom Rivlin@tomrivlin.com · last mo.Funny how three different iconic shots from T2 can be used in different ways to signify "oh fuck it's so hot I'm melting"
Funny how three different iconic shots from T2 can be used in different ways to signify "oh fuck it's so hot I'm melting"
Tallinn is absolutely peak. Really enjoyed it here. Probably the best European old town experience I've ever had. I recommend the surprisingly high-effort medieval restaurant Olde Hansa. It has authentically old-timey food and vibes. Super fun.
If you're interested in learning more, I wrote a SciShow episode about this! www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONSW...
Can We Describe The Whole Universe With A Single Number?
YouTube video by SciShow
youtube.com
Quanta Magazine@quantamagazine.org · 2mo agoWhere you stop tallying the building blocks of reality depends on your taste for complexity —and mystery. www.quantamagazine.org/how-many-ele...
Just had a scary moment where someone had guessed the master password I use for my password manager. It's fine now, they still needed a code from my email address so they couldn't get actual access (and I've now reset the password), but still concerning! I thought I'd set a strong password!
Had a lot of fun this week doing a Pint of Science talk with my colleague Phila! I think we did a good job with the challenge of explaining quasiprobabilities in quantum mechanics to a general audience!
Whatever intuitions you formed three years ago when you first heard of ChatGPT (and the people boosting it...), you really should be updating them. I'm but a humble physicist but I'd even say this story is the Deep Blue-Kasparov moment for mathematics
Timothy Gowers@wtgowers.bsky.social · 3mo agoOpenAI's claim that this is a central conjecture in discrete geometry is not an exaggeration. This will I think be looked back on as the first time that AI solved a major mathematics problem (defined as a problem that all experts in some subfield had thought about). openai.com/index/model-...
New SciShow! This one was wild to write. I changed my mind on what the story was even about multiple times. What even is a unit? A constant of nature? A law of physics? I thought I knew before writing this script, now I'm not so sure! Find out for yourself here: youtu.be/ONSW0a6ihKI?...
Can We Describe The Whole Universe With A Single Number?
YouTube video by SciShow
youtu.be
Tune in on Tuesday to see the video that Pepe Silvia'd me more than anything I've ever worked on.
SciShow@scishow.bsky.social · 3mo agoGrab your popcorn, and your green notebooks. This is what SciShow's talking about next week!
Bit of a physicist pilgrimage in Budapest today. Wild fact: Wigner, von Neumann, Teller, and Szilard... all giants of 20th C. physics, all major players in the Manhattan project, all Jews born in the same Budapest district... the first three even went to the same school at about the same time
Yeah I've basically become radicalised on this recently. Pretty much of the opinion that Everything Bad in the World can be explained by The Bad Black Rectangle and short-form video specifically. Ban social media for under 14s, and over 14s too tbh
Left Outside@leftoutside.bsky.social · 3mo agoGreat article on the biggest thing to happen in the last five years (it's bad). www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Despite working at the Atominstitut for over three years, before this week I'd never seen the reactor while it was in operation. Because the power and radiation output is so low, I reckon this must be as close as it's possible to get to Cherenkov radiation almost anywhere in the world
Great piece. I do scicomm and I'm fine "just" telling fun science stories to the science-enthusiast public... But I know many scicommers want their work to positively impact the world, and there are definitely many bad ideas floating around about how to achieve that. Glad someone's talking about it
Elise Cutts@elisecutts.bsky.social · 4mo agoLately I've been thinking a lot about science, scicomm, and the crazy world we live in. And yeah. Now I'm completely reworking my newsletter. Because I feel like us science folks — scientists, scicommers, journalists, everyone who believes in science and truth as a force for good — need to talk.
I'll be giving a talk with my colleague Phila at a Pint of Science event next month in Vienna! We're planning some cool stuff, it should be fun! pintofscience.at/event/trust-...
Time to share one of my top 10 favourite videos of all time: www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRsO...
Steamed Hams Inc. ♪
YouTube video by NPCarlsson
youtube.com
On This Day in Simpsons History@dailysimpsons.bsky.social · 4mo ago30 years ago today, Principal Skinner purchased fast food to disguise as his own cooking at an unforgettable luncheon with Superintendent Chalmers. #TheSimpsons episode “22 Short Films About Springfield” first aired April 14, 1996.
NASA Announces Plan To Put Moon On Mars By 2040 https://theonion.com/nasa-announces-plan-to-put-moon-on-mars-by-2040-1849041634/
Though I'm past one hundred thousand miles I'm feeling very still And I think my spaceship knows which way to go #ArtemisII www.nasa.gov/missions/art...
For the first time in over 50 years, there are human beings more than ~1000 km from the Earth 🫡
Paul Byrne@theplanetaryguy.com · 4mo agoThis image of home just came down from the Artemis II crew. Taken after their translunar injection burn, there are aurorae at top right and lower left, and zodiacal light at lower right. Credit: NASA/Reid Wiseman
Finally, for the first time ever, a useful quantum foundations paper.
QuOI Theory@quoi-theory.at · 4mo agoA new, very serious preprint is out from Veronika and Alberto. No, don't look at today's date it's 100% legit we promise. It's a genuine proof that P=NP... (...if you believe in quantum many-worlds and are willing to destroy almost every observer in the multiverse 👀) arxiv.org/abs/2603.28869
What's the difference between Australia and Austria? One's got loads of Sheilas, the other's got loads of Schieles
New SciShow I wrote! What's the strongest laser in the world? Well, it depends what you mean by strongest... Find out more in this super fun video! Also featuring possibly my favourite introduction I've ever written for a video www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqPl...
The 3 Strongest Lasers in the World (For Now)
YouTube video by SciShow
youtube.com
We talk a lot here about weird quantum things, from conceptual foundations questions to technological challenges. It's easy to be confused by it all, so here's Phila from our group giving a TEDx Talk at TU Wien last year on demystifying quantum physics! www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJkO...
Demystifying quantum physics | Phila Rembold | TEDxTUWien
YouTube video by TEDx Talks
youtube.com