Richard Easther
@REasther
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Father, husband, scientist, prof @AucklandUni ; my opinions; "Astrophysics - it's like a barfight with God" rjme @mastodon .nz He/him.
Joined May 2011
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By the time you are 13.8 billion years old you should have 1) converted 25% of your baryonic content to helium, 2) become transparent to radiation 3) formed a complex web of galaxies 4) created trillions of planets and 5) evolved intelligent life on at least one of them
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The smoke from a continent scale fire disaster has crossed the sea -- New Zealand Twitter is flooded with images of orange skies above the South Island, and the smoke shows clearly in this view from space... 1/N
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Musk has always been a more of an engineer than a physicist, but today he became a "retired engineer". (Physicists and their inboxes will know EXACTLY what I mean)
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Me: Now, class, you will recall the concept of inertia, which is of course the tendency of an object in uniform motion to continue in that state, unless acted on by an external force.
Students: Could you give us a concrete example?
Me: I was hoping one of you would ask that.
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If you are a teacher in NZ and find yourself with a greater workload next week due to some of your colleagues being absent, flick me a message and I am happy to try to organise to video call your class to talk about space, or hold a session for NCEA physics or calculus students.
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What it took to get tenure in the Batman Studies Department in the 1960s, and what it takes to get tenure in Batman Studies today...
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Rather deal with Nazis this way than the way my father had to.
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I'll start: we've launched a spacecraft to the moon, had the lowest Covid death toll relative to anywhere, initiated a new public holiday recognising the wisdom of the Maori who navigated to out islands, and built more houses than we've managed in decades
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Just been elected president of the New Zealand Institute of Physics -- tweeting from now on will be more presidential in tone :-)
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This pretty much ends any claim astrophysicists have to being the smartest person in the room, just because they are an astrophysicist.
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Speaking as an astrophysicist, O'Connor is dead wrong here. Almost no astronomers regularly refer to the Pleiades with its Messier number; it's a double gotcha -- you think you have caught someone, but you've actually caught yourself...
'How are we respecting cultural diversity?' National MP questions name of new Matariki holiday
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Auckland Airport Rainfall, back to 1963. Thick line is 2023 (doh) Today's effort so far (55mm) in purple...
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The scene: a car crash. It looks bad, smoke, and people crying out in pain.
A crowd gathers, everyone unsure what to do next...
But then, a high end SUV stops, and the occupants run to the accident, yelling "Let us through, we're entrepreneurs!"
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All these people tweeting “I’ve had symptoms for three days but my RAT tests have all been negative” sure make a joke of “if we just used RAT tests we could open the border and live with Covid”
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My view as an educator is that students get more out of participating in the climate strike than out of one regular day of school.
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No astronomer I have met would object to this usage. Personally, I am super-excited. Not just because it is a marker on a journey toward a genuine partnership between Tangata Whenua and Tangata Tiriti, but also because it gets people looking at the sky :) /End
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Here's the Mongrel Mob making a lot more sense than the Chamber of Commerce, K-Road bar owners, Bishop Brian and a whole bunch of yoga mums...
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Chuffed to learn today that I had won a
@AucklandUni
Teaching Excellence award for Leadership in Teaching and Learning.
Writing a teaching portfolio was a fascinating exercise - as scientist we're expected to organise our ideas, but as teachers, not so much... So, here's mine
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The woman that I love is storing this object at the back of the bottom shelf of our pantry, in the hope that civilisation recovers to the point that it is once again useful.
(Younger readers may request clarification)
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A huge shoutout to my colleague,
@SiouxsieW
. Not just a topnotch scientist, but one of the world's top science communicators, and a familiar trusted voice (and head of hair) for New Zealanders in an unprecedented time of crisis...
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@GeorgeKCampbell
This is the basic paradox at the bottom of this -- hospo hated lockdowns, but also a decent chunk of their clientele hates needlessly exposing themselves to a potentially debilitating illness 1/n
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Step outside. If you can see the moon, the adjacent “star” is Jupiter :-)
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I'm not moving to Mastodon until I can get this sort of quality content there. (Sorry
@SeamusBlackley
)
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Hearing muffled thumps in Auckland right now which are consistent with the arrival time of noise from the Tongan volcano
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Super impressed to hear the PM continually reference the science, and the research here -- evidence based, well communicated, and drawing from epidemiology, medicine, and economic history.
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Astonishing visualisation of the propagating pressure wave from the Tonga volcano - made by looking at difference between successive image pairs.
1月15日の16時10分～20時50分までのひまわり8号のバンド8(6.2μm)上層水蒸気の画像から前後フレームの差分(10分間)を取ってみると、日本時間20時40分頃のトンガ諸島の火山噴火によるソニックブーム(?)の到着が可視化できました。
興味深いのは同心円の模様が何重にも確認できることです。
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Musk just flunked math here. A vector sum is linear. The effect he is talking about is an interaction term, and likely nonlinear.
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Grounded Kiwis actually lost most of their claims. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - they would have been much more effective if they had focussed on the allocation process and avoided the armchair epidemiology.
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“People might go to a show, but they will be spaced out”.
- Our Prime Minister
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“Some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I am prepared to make”
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So, ChatGPT is not a dirty minded teenager, but it is a nerd... Here are the results of asking it to choose a random number between 1 and 100.
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One of the most remarkable things about the pandemic here has been the disconnect between mainstream and elite opinion and the baffled fury of some members of the elite when they cannot get their way.
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Dudes who think e-bikes are cheating are going to completely lose it when they find out about cars.
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Free, no-wait, no appointment pop-up Covid testing on your left, no queue early voting on your right (one of dozens hereabouts). Sometimes we do just nail it.
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When asked to attend 9am meetings, two separate, famous Harvard physicists (Schwinger and Coleman) both supposedly replied "Sorry, I can't stay up that late."
Their work will stand for centuries, but anyone who writes this sort of nonsense will be quickly forgotten.
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@Clive_Copeman
@kiwibardy
And this is the big one: elect politicians who are serious about climate, and expect them to follow through on their promises. 16/N
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I was at the Mall yesterday in my N95.
Gotta say, looks like a lot of people are getting Covid for Christmas.
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@Clive_Copeman
@kiwibardy
In an effort to support the Australian response, the Japanese have switched the spacecraft to a faster cadence, taking pictures every 2.5 minutes 6/N
Thanks again to the Japanese Meteorological Agency for maintaining Himawari-8 intensive 2.5 minute obs through another day of significant fire weather. Today's imagery shows plumes again developing across parts of E Vic/NSW.
#AustralianFires
#Mallacoota
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Chuffed I've been appointed inaugural Chair of New Zealand's National Committee for COSPAR, the Committee on Space Research, an international organisation promoting scientific research in space; joining is big step for NZ.
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This is a haaaaard Level 3 folks. It's Level 4 with takeaways, not with the neighbours. (And can someone tell Jenny Gibbs this means her too. Yes, the rules do actually apply to everyone. That's why they work.)
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Just saw this. Will be dropping a donation on
@efesocollins
today on the strength of it. Aucklanders, we have real choice for mayor this time -- use it on someone who will take us forwards, not drag us backwards.
Dirty politics starts in mayoral election. Full page in Herald today.
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Huge kudos to
@davidfarrier
for this - he deprived two bullies of a (literal) pulpit, struck a blow for decency and compassion, and did it all as an independent journalist. Multi-award winning quality work. (Starting with the Richard-tweets-on-Friday. Niche but not given lightly)
following months of reporting, john cameron and brent cameron are resigning from arise church:
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Global warming rampant in Death Valley, aftermath of devastating explosion in Beirut, Tory government shines harsh light on class and privilege, bid for freedom in Thailand. Meanwhile, in New Zealand...
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Judging by the morning traffic in my 'hood, I suspect that most of Auckland moved to its own private Level 3.5 about a week ago.
No-one told us to, but most of us did.
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Now THAT is what I call an equation. Love those exponents; no-one is getting that sucker just with dimensional analysis. (Or at least I am not)
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Hang on - they have banned the TRAIN for a human mistake. This is like when Henry was bricked up in a tunnel for misbehaving
The Hamilton to Auckland train service, Te Huia, has been banned from entering Auckland city due to dangerous driving, which could have caused a collision.
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Bills would be a lot smaller if our man here hadn’t overpaid by a factor of three, put the resulting inflated interest bill on the balance sheet, and then thought it was a good idea to bill one of the world’s most famous writers for the privilege of giving him content for free.
@StephenKing
We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8?
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The best time to start scanning QR codes was two weeks ago.
The second best time is now.
Just don’t stop.
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I get the idea of stocking up ahead of a possible COVID-19 outbreak. It’s not an apocalyptic plague, but self-quarantine and/or slowing the spread of the disease means you may want to be be on your own for a bit. But WATER COMES OUT OF TAPS. You want rice and beans and tampons.
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I’m not always proud to be a New Zealander. But this headline comes out of the kind of country I want to live in.
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A few months from now, we will look back and see a single line of footprints in the sand.
And all the vaccinated NZers, scientists, community leaders, nurses and doctors will look at the surviving, defiant anti-vaxxers and say “that was when we f
@cking
carried you, assholes.”👣
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@Clive_Copeman
@kiwibardy
There is no sensible doubt that the magnitude of this disaster is driven by climate change: Australia has always had fires, but climate change makes it hotter and drier, nudging more places above the tipping point on which fire will take hold on more days of the year 7/N
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The best time to get a Covid vaccine was six weeks ago. The second best time is today.
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Went to graduation yesterday - I might have thought that I was forever in the applause section, but was given this at the end of the show…. Thanks hugely to the awesome colleagues at
@UoA_Physics
and
@AucklandUni
and our awesome students, without whom none of this would happen
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Just leaving this here…. We may still wind up in a bad place, but at least it won’t be for lack of trying.
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The author calls this "the clearer plot above". I can only assume he got his training in data science by reading the entrails of recently slaughtered chickens...
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I’m not a big sports commentator, but if you don’t like two people sharing the gold for high jumping just get off the damn couch, put in the hard yards, and jump higher than both of them. Jeez. Simple
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As I was saying, someone writes a shitty paper, sprays hyperbolae to the media, gets amplified by clowns like
@joerogan
and then brings out the uninformed blue tick bottom feeders whose own limitations are the parts of the universe they understand least. Oh, hi
@elonmusk
Seems the "Write a crappy paper + add an extra layer of bullshit when you talk to the media + get Joe Rogan to eat it all and come back for seconds pipeline" is working well...
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This is paywalled but it is Roy Kerr's 90th birthday - if there are still scientists 1000 years from now to talk about black holes they will be using Roy's equations to do it. The man casts a Hillary-level shadow, and New Zealanders should know his name...
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Physicists -- now is the time to prank call colleagues and say "Ja, it is Chair of the Nobel committee here, calling from Sveden -- we are looking to call <name of their biggest rival>, and hoped you had their number."
Followed by your best Swedish chef impersonation
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I love space.
But sometimes I look at claims for the future of human spaceflight, and instead of seeing inspiration, see a Bitcoin-style bubble driven by greed, ignorance and a failure to understand the deep realities of the world.
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Judith Collins said National MPs were "too busy at work" to figure out one of their colleagues was a bully. Newsflash: for senior people identifying the bullies and harassers in your workplace and stopping them is actually part of your work.
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That is absolutely astonishing. A bigger deal than the launch.
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Minister
@chrishipkins
-- it's super-simple. If you want kids back at school, you need to make it safe. Masking, better ventilation and in-room air-filtering would keep them safer and make them feel safer.
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“Collins was given the minor portfolio of research, science, innovation and technology.” 👀.
Minor? Cries in scientist.
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Must admit am a bit surprised by anti-vax protestors claiming that the ANZACs fought for their freedom from vaccine mandates.
Many ANZACs were conscripts, so they would have understood better than most that the state can make huge demands of its citizens in a time of crisis.
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This man deserves a medal. Every time some cooker tweets claiming that New Zealand has an unexpectedly large number of excess deaths David explains that it is EXACTLY as expected because of our growing population of people 65+
@DeptofBrexitUK
Since the 1800s, when Victoria ruled the Empire, it has been normal best practice to compare deaths by using death rates by age, to avoid being the fool that clams more living old people are mystery deaths.
For every age group the NZ death rate is below pre-covid.
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In less than a week New Zealand's Prime Minister has announced she is having a baby and we have seen the first successful launch to orbit from New Zealand soil. This is the future this liberal wants.
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I am pretty sure (actually, make that very sure) no other country's Covid vaccination campaign video will look like this...
Ka kite, Covid.
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Saw that the alternative medicine place down the road had closed for the month, since only essential services are staying open.
Glad we finally settled that debate.
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Delighted to be a winner of one of this year's national Aotearoa Tertiary Educator Awards -- and huge thanks to the awesome crew at
@UoA_Physics
and the great colleagues all across
@AucklandUni
who made this work possible.
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If this holds up (or close it), it's an astonishing performance. Vaccines, health professionals, MIQ, policy...
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I’m voting Green for the first time this year. Climate, health, poverty + values I grew up with: a beautiful country and a “fair go” /1
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Truly dismayed at the number of people who think sex and gender is binary just because of chromosomes. Anyone who knows anything about science and math knows binary coding does not preclude the emergence of continuous quantities. In fact, coders call these variables REALS.
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@GeorgeKCampbell
And the very real problem is that this may not get better any time soon. Covid is spiking again in Europe and the tools we have used to keep our ICU numbers relatively low so far (mandates and vaccine passes as well as masking) are being chipped away at... 2/n
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Hoping Twitter has recovered to the point where I can say that the
@MetService
app and website are pretty much a disgrace.
Sluggish, unresponsive and an app littered with shitty adverts while supposedly providing a critical service to the NZ public.
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Jocelyn Bell timeline
1967 Key role in discovery of pulsars
1974 Misses out on the Nobel because of her gender
2018 Wins far more lucrative US$3M Breakthrough Prize
2018 Donates winnings to a scholarship to counter unconscious bias.
Think about that.
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That’s not a lockdown, Sydney. THIS is a lockdown. New Zealand - not here to, um, kiss spiders. H/T
@Thoughtfulnz
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@Clive_Copeman
To set the scale, the distance between the Australian coast and the South Island of New Zealand is roughly the same as between London and Moscow (H/T Brandon Clarke
@kiwibardy
) 4/N
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Vile story on
@NewsroomNZ
of grooming and assault on a vulnerable student by an academic, and the perpetrator has left to a job overseas -- possibly with the uni doing nothing to warn the place that hired him. It's a tough read; link in the following tweet
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@Clive_Copeman
@kiwibardy
But you should worry.
I'll close on this. Another photo from New Zealand. A tweep whose security lights came on at noon. Seems like a sign. Let's make this year a better one than the last. 20/20
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@Clive_Copeman
@kiwibardy
If you are looking for New Year's Resolutions, try some of these. Drive petrol powered cars less. Ride a bike more. Get solar panels (in most places it will save you money). Think carefully about the meat you eat and where it comes from. Consume thoughtfully. Fly less 15/N
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Did they say 25,000 tests in the last two days. Doing the numbers on my fingers, but no or very few positive tests not obviously connected to the existing cluster looks like good news.
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