Martin Bauer
@martinmbauer
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Working on particle physics, quantum sensors, dark matter. Associate Prof at @IPPP_Durham @durham_uni , FLF @UKRI_News , Science board member @STFC_Matters
Durham
Joined July 2021
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Last Seen Profiles
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Physics threads 2023
Happy 2024 everyone!
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I just learned that the first formula for calculating the n-th decimal digit of pi (without calculating all the preceding digits) has been found by Simon Plouffe in 2022 😲
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Every superconductor is a room temperature superconductor if people just quit whining and put on a thick sweater
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For the first time we have evidence that the Higgs boson decays into a Z boson and a photon.
A phenomenal achievement!
Τhis very rare decay is a crucial test of electroweak symmetry breaking and if the Higgs was a little bit lighter we would have never seen it
🧵 1/10
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It pains me to see eminent colleagues like Neil deGrasse Tyson propagate elementary mistakes.
What would really be the implications of taking Santa Claus seriously?
I’ll repeat the basics of Santa Mechanics. A theory way more advanced than Neil let’s on here.
🎄🧵 1/13
In case you were wondering, for Santa, in a single 24-hr Earth-night, to deliver presents to all those who celebrate Christmas, he must visit 25,000 homes per second.
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Reminder that one can show that 'election' results in Russia are manipulated based on statistical anomalies in the official data
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We have 3 space dimensions but only one dimension of time. Why is there just one time? What would happen if there were more time dimensions?
A short 🧵that requires some math. (You can probably follow w/o math as well) 1/16
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Einsteins equations are diff equations connecting the geometry of our 3+1 D spacetime with the energy-momentum tensor:
"Matter tells spacetime how to curve, and curved spacetime tells matter how to move"
But in 2D gravity something weird happens
🧵1/8
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Many know Euler's identity, but did you also know that
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Short(est) history of fundamental physics.
Newton: Σ → ∫
Planck: ∫ → Σ
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I always thought it odd that the assigned values of chess pieces are integers.
Given the complexity of the game that can't really be true, can it?
And indeed it isn't. A short thread 🧵 1/7
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Mathematics wasn’t invented or discovered, it was extrapolated from physics.
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You’re surprised about the amount of money, but it’s even more surprising that 2^30 is an odd number
A penny doubled each day for a month:
day 1: $0.01
day 2: $0.02
day 3: $0.04
day 4: $0.08
day 5: $0.16
day 6: $0.32
day 7: $0.64
day 8: $1.28
day 9: $2.56
day 10: $5.12
day 11: $10.24
day 12: $20.48
day 13: $40.96
day 14: $81.92
day 15: $163.84
day 16: $327.68
day 17: $655.36…
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This is a crime scene.
My university
@ugent
throwing away sci (algebra/..) books because nobody would be interested in them - or getting them to somebody interested would be too costly.
I don't blame them but there has to be a better way since these books are quite costly and the material is timeless.
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If you want to define a continuous addition you get the Riemann integral
This is what happens if you want to define a continuous *product*
One of the weirdest and most satisfying integrals you've ever seen and why it's important for physics
(a quite technical 🧵) 1/12
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You know Pythagoras theorem?
It holds only on a flat surface. On a curved surface -like earth- a right triangle can even have triangles with 3 right angles
Can we generalise Pythagoras? Yes, and the generalisation is a beautiful equation relating triangles and circles
🧵 1/6
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When anyone tells me they consider geometry in 3D intuitive but not higher dimensional objects I always show them Gabriels horn (Torricelli's trumpet) obtained by rotating 1/x around the x-axis.
Gabriels horn has a finite volume but infinite surface area.
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Protons are not fundamental particles, but dynamical systems made of quarks and gluons. What a proton looks like depends on 2 quantities: the momentum at which you probe (Q^2) and the fraction of the proton momentum carried by each quark or gluon inside the proton (x) 1/6
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Mathematicians, I am going to define 'ifff = iff and only iff' and there is nothing you can do about it.
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"Listen grandson, within 15 years we discovered the Higgs boson, we saw the sky light up in gravitational waves and then astrophysicsts discovered organic molecules on planets 100s of light years away.For historical reasons this is known as the era of great stagnation in physics"
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I hope the prime minister is aware that salaries of postdoctoral researchers have reached such a low level in this country that this law would make it impossible for UK scientists to employ international experts
It would be a huge own goal!
🚨 BREAKING: Rishi Sunak will increase the salary threshold so that EVERY migrant has to earn over £38k before coming to Britain in a major plan to slash migration
He will also announce new limits on them bringing family
[
@JackElsom
]
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A thread on one of the most important sums in all of mathematics.
This result will surprise you! 🧵
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In case twitter goes down: I found an incredibly elegant proof of Riemanns hypothesis
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Classical mechanics is at least as 'spooky' as quantum mechanics. Forces act instantaneously, the past and future of everything is determined and can be calculated, action at a distance...
Our intuition really fools us.
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Has anyone tried to train AI with only 19th century sources and see whether it can discover special relativity?
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He probably reads ‘possible’ as ‘currently feasible’ or defines rocket as ‘chemical rocket’?
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How to get physicists to wash their hands properly. This is at the ITP Heidelberg 🙂
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If you still think peer review is a bad idea:
Look at the absolute car crash that the superconductor discussion on twitter is
This is your alternative. Without peer review journals would look like that
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A thread about a modern view on constants in fundamental physics.
Why are some of them more interesting to physicists and what makes them special?
1/15
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*Everybody* who learns quantum mechanics will have their worldview changed at a fundamental level.
If we were to design a lecture series called “This will make you rethink everything you know’ , what other topics must be on that list ? (No matter the field or how specialised)
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Didn’t Penn demote Karikó, cut her salary and tried to fire her ?
Self-adulation over a Nobel prize but no recognition of the way they treated the ‘historic research team’ when it didn’t seem profitable enough.
Turning Universities into businesses was a mistake
Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, Penn’s historic mRNA vaccine research team, win 2023
@NobelPrize
in Medicine
#nobelprize
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9/13 The leading theory today is the model of 'Quanta Claus'. Evidence for the quantum mechanical nature of Santa has been collected worldwide
1. Santa is never directly observed, but indirect evidence of him abounds.
2. 'Chimney Tunneling'
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Mathematical physics is a subfield of physics, Physical mathematics is a subfield of mathematics and physical mathematics is a subfield of mathematical physics.
Just in case there was any confusion.
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This opinion is the number one indicator that someone has no idea about physics
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The misconception that math and creativity are somehow not compatible can only come from people that haven't spent enough time with math.
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If you never study physics you will only ever see a fraction of what the world really is.
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Happy pi day everyone!
The proof that 22/7 > pi fits in one tweet
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For those of you following the escalating situation at 145 UK Universities:
University management has now decided not to graduate students and hand out participation certificates instead.
Yes you read that correctly. It's beyond absurdity. I'm lost for words.
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Physics and maths is the greatest love/hate relationship in history.
Physics is the ‘love’ part.
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If Mathematics is the language in which God has written the Universe, physics is the dirty dialect it actually ended up speaking
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Why is progress in nuclear fusion so slow?
We spend all this R&D money, shouldn't it be online by now?
Even physicists joke about the 'fusion constant' of 30 years until a working reactor
There are many reasons, but one problem could be solved right now.🧵 1/9
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If you think physicists are all about symmetry show this to a physicist and see how it goes
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For everyone writing application letters right now here is the famous rejected rejection letter in case it’s needed
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A thread with some basic red flags in data graphs.
As physicists we stare at data a lot and it is surprising how frequent data representation in media (and even in science) distorts the message.
In extreme cases you end up with ridiculous plots like this:
🧵1/9
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"Physicists should really show a bit more humility given the many open problems they still face"
Mathematicians:
Wonderful session on mathematicians being the masters of the universe at
@braemar_summit
with
@MarcusduSautoy
@SLSingh
@Bobby_Seagull
and
@BBCsarahsmith
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I found a little Christmas present for you in the library. A beautifully illustrated introduction to particle physics from 1988
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Superconductivity requires a phase transition and they can’t give the critical temperature
The arxiv is so sceptical they even rescinded a ‘t’ from their title
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Today, deep underground, the most incredible machine ever built in human history will accelerate protons on a 27km ring to an unprecedented 99.9999996% of the speed of light before delivering 1.6 billion collisions per second
The Large Hadron Collider is a Wonder of the World
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Quantum field theories (QFTs) are the most succesful theories in the history of physics.
Unfortunately the success and implications of QFTs are less known outside of physics (comparead to e.g. string theories or GR). 🧵
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Whoever decided to put that line through these data points should be let go immediately.
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Does the physics community ever humor the idea that the dark matter is aliens or super intelligence hiding their civilization behind a veil or anything? Dark matter seems very suspicious to say the least. Asking earnestly..
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Solar power : solar energy.
Hydro power : solar energy.
Wind power : solar energy.
coal, oil, gas : solar energy.
biomass : solar energy.
nuclear power : snatching energy from the corpse of a star that exploded in a violent supernova billions of years ago.
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Quantum gravity solves one of the most pressing problems in all of physics
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Absolute nonsense.
The Standard Model makes no prediction about the emergence of consciousness *at all*
@lexfridman
@xai
I often wonder where consciousness starts, as we progress from one cell to ~35 trillion cells.
If the Standard Model is correct, then quarks & leptons become “conscious” no later than ~13.8B years from start, assuming there are no sentient aliens.
Btw, where are the aliens!?
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Group theory is probably the most powerful, ubiquitous tool in all of theoretical physics. It should be part of every undergraduate curriculum.
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Why would photons decay if the speed of light wasn't the speed limit?
Remember:
Everything wants to decay in quantum field theory. You need a symmetry to *stop it* from decaying.
Lorentz symmetry protects the photon from decaying.
You can show that in a few tweets:
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The Newtonian constant was just a constant ... til 1915
The electron mass was just a constant ... til 1967
The Fermi constant was just a constant ... til 1971
The proton mass was just a constant ... til 1974
The cosmological constant is just a constant ...
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All snark aside, you can’t possibly conclude physics has a ‘very simplistic causal structure’ if you’ve seen anything beyond Newtonian mechanics
This must be trolling
Using Physics as your template for how science works makes you stupid about science. Physics is a weird little science with a very simplistic causal structure. It’s fundamental laws are universal. They operate always and everywhere. No other science is like that.
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I'll raise you
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And the other Nobel prize for physics this year goes to..
BREAKING NEWS
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2023
#NobelPrize
in Chemistry to Moungi G. Bawendi, Louis E. Brus and Alexei I. Ekimov “for the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots.”
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Human eyes only see the world through the very narrow 'visible spectrum' of electromagnetic radiation. But not all creatures see the world in the same light. Quite literally.
Bees for example can see shorter wavelengths and for them flowers look even more spectacular 🧵1/12
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The UK is *out* of all R&D programmes: Horizon, Copernicus and EUratom
We had no science minister representing the UK at the meeting, because the position has been left unfilled for 77 days
This will cause lasting, extraordinary damage to UK science!
BREAKING: UK "urgently considering" next steps after unsuccessful Horizon meeting: UK government says EU declined request for association to R&D programmes at disputes committee meeting. (£)
@sophie_inge
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The speed of light is constant, finite, and no massive body can ever match it
This fact is at the basis of modern physics
And we're really confident in that because it's implications have been tested to astonishing precision.
But not by measuring the speed of light... 🧵1/10
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Controversial opinion: Lab courses are very good for theoretical physicists. You may suffer, but it's a valuable lesson that nature doesn't give up her secrets easily.
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When I was a student I asked my professors about their favourite theorem (or law) in physics. Most named Noether's theorem.
It is one of the most influential contributions to physics in the 20th century (among a very tough competition). A short 🧵 1/10
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The top 10 Physics Problems for the Next Millennium as proposed by participants of the 2000 Strings conference and selected by a panel of Duff, Gross and Witten:
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Physics is
15% luck
15% skill
20% talent and coffee and will
40% creativity, ingenuity, and love and
10% stretching the validity of math
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The nuclei of atoms are made from protons and neutrons.
Why are there no nuclei made only of neutrons?
It has to do with the Pauli principle, but if the strong force was 10% stronger pure neutron and proton bound states could exist and we might not..
A 🧵
1/12
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Here is the paper
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'The crisis in particle physics'
My opinion on the crisis in particle physics or fundamental physics more broadly.
(longer than it looks like ) 🧵1/20
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@billionsmustliv
The fact that anyone would be confused by the different implications of these two plots is an outcry for more mandatory statistics courses
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People that think like this misunderstand how progress in mathematics is made
Mathematics isn’t like chess where a limited set of rules and figures dictates every game. It writes the rules while inventing ever new figures
For that AI is as useful as an advanced calculator
Mathematics will fall first. Then, a torrent of results will impact everything in theoretical science.
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String theory might not end up being the fundamental theory of nature, but it will always be a Rohrschach test for people proudly announcing they jump to conclusions after 5 minutes of reading
String theory sounds like bullshit to me. “Vibrating strings” create matter? What are the strings made of?
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The Aharanov-Bohm effect
Weisskopf said: The first reaction to this work is that it is wrong; the second is that it is obvious
Ehrenberg said: Ach Hiley, zis AB effect that you are discussing, is it the one that Siday and I discovered?
What is it?
1/9 🧵
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The result is still remarkably well approximated by the integer values, although AlphaZero finds rooks and queen to be worth closer to 6 and 10
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Physicists only ever publish useless papers nowadays. In the old days publications actually advanced the field.
The old days:
F. Lenz, The ratio of proton and electron masses, Phys. Rev. 82 (1951) 554.
Here is the entire article:
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'Antigravity' in Newton's theory means masses repel each other. In Einsteins theory the implications are more severe.
Newton's grav force is very similar to Coulomb force. The 'charges' in Newton's law are masses. If there was a negative mass it would repel pos masses
🧵 1/6
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This week the Large Hadron Collider at CERN has turned back on after 3 years of shutdown. Not only have the "old" detectors been significantly improved, there is also a mysterious box being installed 70m over the ATLAS detector.
What is going on here? 1/17 🧵
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The wave function in quantum mechanics is not physical, the metric in general relativity is not physical, Feynman diagrams in QFT are not physical processes.
The departure from the idea that every variable is physical is the biggest leap physics has made
1/2
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The new entropy conserving drinks are amazing!
A bottle falls from a shelf, pops its top, then gets propelled back into the plastic wrapper it came from
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8/13 Alternative theories have been proposed:
- 'There is no Santa' by Grinch et al. Phys. Rev. NP 001/1965
- 'There are no good children' by Ruprecht et al. Phys. Rev. NP 013/1816
- More speculative ideas…
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'How the James Webb Space Telescope works'
Source:
The actual JWST mirrors have 7 degrees of freedom (2 tilts, rotating, moving in 3 directions, changing curvature) with nanometer precision and survived the launch and −230°C
Incredible engineering!
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What??
Of course we know exactly where nuclear technology "came from"
It's a pity that being professionally confused about basic science has become a profitable job
Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson speaking about nuclear technology and it is as dumb as you think it would be.
Also, these are the men shaping the minds of a lot of young men. 😬
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It’s only a wormhole if it comes from an actual region of spacetime, everything else is just sparkling quantum mechanics
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The Landau pole - when quantum field theories break down
Contrary to common lore the Standard Model is *not* consistent at arbitrarily high energies - even if you ignore gravity
🧵 1/9
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Irresponsible.
If there were 11 extra dimensions compactified at 1 millimeter this thing could've produced a Black Hole
A homemade particle collider! This collider accelerates electrons to nearly 1.5 eV before smashing them into carbon atoms (10 trillion times less energy than the LHC!)
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Turns out it’s literally a bad idea to learn maths from Marx.
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What is a particle in different theories in physics? The space in which physical states are descibed tells a lot of the story. Here are some examples in a short thread.
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