Chad Orzel @orzelc Twitter profile

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Chad Orzel

2 years

What's my new book A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIMEKEEPING about? I hope the title's self-explanatory, but I went into more detail for The Big Idea:

The Big Idea: Chad Orzel

Chad Orzel is one of my favorite explainers of scientific concepts, and in his new book A Brief History of Timekeeping, he covers one of my favorite topics: Time. But the story of time isn’t …

whatever.scalzi.com

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Last Seen Profiles

@Highlifemann2

@Jeremiah1911060

@bookoff_machida

@SadProgressive

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@Rebels4Choice

@GROW_HOUSE_

@RoR737

@Trigger29289292

Chad Orzel

@orzelc

6 months

This is a picture of a single electron. For every 100 likes this gets, I will make it 10 times larger.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

10 months

The tricky part is walking without rhythm so as not to attract it's attention

AndyLeader

@madeinholmfirth

10 months

The blast furnace & hearth at Redcar Steel Works. Went for a look before it's all gone. The scale is quite mind boggling!

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

5 years

Petition to make this the unskippable log-in screen for Twitter.

Effin' Birds

@EffinBirds

5 years

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

5 years

You Can't Reduce A Conversational Social Medium Like Twitter To A Single Isolated Voice It's @IvePetThatDog

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

2 years

Today in the Pauli Exclusion Principle:

pourmecoffee

@pourmecoffee

2 years

"Physicist Brian Cox struggled to check into a hotel because actor Brian Cox was already staying there"

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

6 years

This may be the thing that gives me the most hope that these young men and women will move things in a lasting way: They're specifically and concretely tying this to elections in a way that other recent movements have not.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

1 year

The problem with this tweet and the replies to it is a kind of muddling of "algebra" the process essential for all kinds of math with "Algebra" the common school course which is a bit of a grab-bag of stuff some of which matters much, much less.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

3 years

And also, not.

Hank Green

@hankgreen

3 years

So, I've done a fair bit of investigation, and as far as I can tell, after talking to a number of the most qualified physicists of our time, it appears that everything is made of little wiggles.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

5 years

This should come up every time you click the "Tweet" button.

Effin' Birds

@EffinBirds

5 years

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

6 years

I, for one, welcome our new canine overlords...

WeRateDogs

@dog_rates

6 years

I hope you’re h*ckin ready

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

3 years

BREAKING: Biden signs executive order declaring once and for all that theta is the polar angle and phi the azimuthal angle, not the other way round, and that the square root of -1 is i, not j.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

3 years

I find myself idly rooting for Andrew Yang to win the NYC mayoral race because he annoys the most irritating sorts of NYC-ers beyond all reason.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

7 years

@dog_rates Anyway, we could do with a lot less "go fuck yourself" and more "They're good dogs, Brent," is my point. 13/10, already got the mug.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

5 years

When you finish a PhD in physics they take you in a special room & tell you that cows aren't spheres, strings aren't massless, and very few things are REALLY simple harmonic oscillators. I am posting this at great physical risk to myself and my family.l

Daniel W. Drezner

@dandrezner

5 years

When you finish a PhD in political science they take you in a special room & tell you that the Illuminati are real and thy start great power wars because they’re bored. I am posting this at great physical risk to myself and my family.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

7 years

To be fair, Sizzler University is a hotbed of far-left identity politics, so it's no wonder he has a skewed perspective...

David Fahrenthold

@Fahrenthold

7 years

This was the Iowa pol who wanted to limit Dems on state univ. faculties. His degree turned out to be a manager-training course at a Sizzler.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

6 years

Today's @EffinBirds shirt is for the people tweeting hateful nonsense at the #MarchForOurLives kids.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

3 months

An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are on a train to Edinburgh. They look out the window and see 21 sheep, one of which is black. The engineer says "Oh, they have black sheep in Scotland, too." The physicist says "They have at least one black sheep in Scotland."...

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

6 years

Another footnote to this Einstein story: Not long after the trip in question, Einstein famously got a letter from a young physicist in India, and helped him publish what's now Bose statistics. That's today in "People are complicated."

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

6 years

Kickstarter to buy ads on Breitbart that are just this.

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@EffinBirds

6 years

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

4 months

@GravitysRa1nbow One of his papers famously doesn't cite any sources, but includes an apologetic note saying that he didn't have access to an academic library to be able to do a proper literature review.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

5 years

Today, for no particular reason, I present: Twitter Feeds of Famous Historical Physicists: P.A.M. Dirac has been on Twitter since 2009, follows two people, and has tweeted six times. All six have gone viral.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

6 years

Well, there's my week made: #Jeopardy

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

3 months

...the mathematician corrects them both: "There is at least one sheep in Scotland that is black on at least one side."

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

10 years

Busy day at Schroedinger Industries... RT @EmrgencyKittens : How to organize your cats. http://t.co/z3QS0fnSdL

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

5 years

Today in "SCIENCE!"

matt

@dogfather

5 years

dog rating is hard work

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

3 years

I've hinted at this a few times, but it's now official: I've been named a Fellow of the American Physical Society, for my outreach/science communication work.

Chad Orzel, associate professor of physics and astronomy, honored as APS Fellow

www.union.edu

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

7 years

A noted liberal snowflake, Ike...

Derek Nelson

@derekcnel

7 years

It's worth re-reading what Eisenhower thought about cutting domestic programs while ramping up military spending.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

1 year

@howie_hua "I'll NEVER need this."

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

4 years

"Let's see what's trending on Twitter this evening..."

Swear Trek

@swear_trek

4 years

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

3 years

High energy theory, quantum information, condensed matter physics.

Rupert Myers

@RupertMyers

3 years

Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

3 months

(These "Oh-ho-ho, you're making hidden assumptions!" responses fall on a continuum with those idiot PEMDAS problems that come around regularly, in that the actual actual answer is "Don't be more of a dickhead than the situation requires.")

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

4 years

@dogfather @thotsofdoglol They're good thots, Mat.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

4 years

I can't believe this hasn't been done yet, but since nobody's coming to my Zoom office hours, here's a physics version of the "Choose Your House" game:

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

5 years

This thread goes places, man. All kinds of places.

foone🏳️‍⚧️

@Foone

5 years

So, Kodak is weird. And a particular way they are weird has to do with the International Fixed Calendar, as developed by Moses Cotsworth in 1902. It's a calendar designed to be maximally compatible with the standard Gregorian while also fixing many of the problems of it.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

2 years

Yeah, I don't have this much time...

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

5 years

On-brand decorations applied to new Chromebook, so I can resume repping @dog_rates while writing at Starbucks.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

7 years

This is critical: Bad things routinely happen to education because otherwise sensible people can't be bothered to vote in off years.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

6 years

Occasional reminder that it's totally possible to both think that someone is on the right side politically and morally, and also that they're kind of a terrible person that you don't really want to associate with.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

3 years

oh, hai, @darth

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

7 years

They used to allow smoking on airplanes. Lasers were rare and expensive. Computers that only displayed ASCII characters, no graphics.

Eric Alper 🎧

@ThatEricAlper

7 years

Without revealing your actual age, what something you remember that if you told a younger person they wouldn't understand?

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

6 years

Between the shirt and the mug, I feel like I have the full experience of academia covered. Thanks, @EffinBirds .

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

2 years

A key document for @Popehat and @jbarro

Jason Colavito

@JasonColavito

2 years

This can't be real, can it?

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

3 months

@MattZeitlin The brief heyday of South African villains was glorious. Wonderfully hate-able regime, and just a fabulous accent.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

2 years

Roses are red Violets are blue If gravitons exist They must be spin two #PhysicsValentines

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

1 year

It would be impossible to teach more interesting and useful math without algebra-the-process. It would absolutely be possible without Algebra-the-course, though it would require a substantial rethinking of the math curriculum going back to elementary school.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

6 years

New addition from @EffinBirds classing up my campus office

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

2 years

By the time an engineer reaches retirement age, they must choose their kook physics theory. There are only four options: Relativity is a hoax Quantum mechanics explains free will Entaglement enables telepathy Something about entropy I don't make the rules.

Austen Allred

@Austen

2 years

By the time a man turns 40 he must pick his intellectual hobby. There are only four options: * Greeks * Romans * Mongols * World War II I don’t make the rules.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

3 years

This is a nice article on Von Neumann, though being a bit contrarian, I always want to respond to praise of him by noting that he set quantum foundations back probably 30 years because of his reputation as a genius.

The forgotten Einstein: how John von Neumann shaped the modern world

More than anyone else, John von Neumann created the future. He was an unparalleled genius, one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century, and he helped invent the world as we now know it. He...

www.spectator.co.uk

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

6 years

I should also note that the @dog_rates reference in Chapter 9 was totally worth it for the baffled queries from editors and proofreaders who weren't familiar with @matt___nelson :

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

1 year

@howie_hua "I hated that in high school." Gotta be number one, with a bullet.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

1 year

I'd just like to put it out there that, as the author of two books explaining quantum mechanics for non-scientists (one with a talking dog, even...), I am ready and willing to go on the @joerogan show and talk about quantum computers in a way that is not complete nonsense.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

2 years

Quantum physics

Laura, just a regular pilot turned writer

@LauraSavino747

2 years

Name something people have strong opinions on, but actually know little about.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

7 years

Spicer: Hold my beer...

Hend Amry

@LibyaLiberty

7 years

Picking a fight with Anne Frank over antisemitism is what I'd call a career low.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

3 years

The CDC says that fully vaccinated people who have a Lagrangian with a continuous symmetry can use it to identify a conserved quantity associated with that system.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

6 years

Your publications are high-impact Their conclusions are far-reaching But my favorite thing about you Is that you're also good at teaching #AcademicValentines

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

10 months

"Physicists make bad philosophers, but then, so do most philosophers." -- Bill Phillips (I don't recall the exact context of this, but it was one of my Facebook memories today.)

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

6 years

We got SteelyKid the @dog_rates book for Christmas, which is why I just spent ten minutes trying to define "woke af" in a way that makes sense to a fourth grader...

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

5 years

Today in The Goodest of the Good:

WeRateDogs

@dog_rates

5 years

This is Frida. She became Mexico’s symbol for hope after the 2017 earthquakes. It’s reported she’s located over 50 people in her long rescue career. Today, her protective gear was removed and replaced with a toy to signify her retirement and a new beginning. 15/10 #GraciasFrida

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

1 year

My controversial liberal arts opinion is that we should stop using "the liberal arts" as a high-toned way to say "not STEM," because if your liberal arts education doesn't include math and science it's not a liberal arts education.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

9 years

#IAmAScientistBecause Science turns "I don't know" into "I don't know... yet" and you won't find anything more empowering than that.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

2 years

Basically an entire month of movie-watching with the kids: Fletches, Nolans, RRR, and Shane Black:

Massive Movie Nights Post

Fletches, Nolans, RRR, and Shane Black

chadorzel.substack.com

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

5 years

The most ambitious crossover event in the history of very good dogs.

WeRateDogs

@dog_rates

5 years

I’m with @IvePetThatDog at the AKC National Dog Show presented by Royal Canin! We’re on a mission to pet all the dogs. It’s going really well. #partner

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

6 years

It's uncanny how Microsoft KNOWS to schedule Windows updates that require a reboot for days when I'll be running late and can't afford to wait five minutes for my computer to become useful.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

9 years

Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does the things a spider can. Climbs up inside the water spout, rain comes down, gets washed out...

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

8 years

New York City, don't ever change.

Washington Examiner

@dcexaminer

8 years

Donald Trump booed as he votes at his New York City polling location.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

1 year

To some extent, this is what the curricular reform shorthanded as "Common Core Math" was supposed to do- my kids started seeing proto-algebra (the process) much earlier than I did. Lots and lots of people HATED that approach, though

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

8 years

The person next to me has 97 slides in the deck for a 30-minute conference talk. #PassesNoteToFlightAttendant

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

1 year

There are two kinds of famous people whose names trend on Twitter: one is "Oh, I hope nothing bad happened to them" and the other "I hope that sonofabitch got run over by a bus."

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

2 years

I have spent my entire adult life in elite academia, and I remain utterly baffled as to why the city where the publisher is located is regarded as such critical bibliographic information.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

6 months

Condensed matter theory; quantum information experiment High energy theory; quantum foundations

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

7 years

Hello, The Hague? I'd like to report a violation of the Geneva Convention. This Starbucks just played the Chipmunks' "Frosty the Snowman".

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

5 years

Charles Kittel, of multiple famous textbooks, most notably on Solid State Physics, died a couple of weeks ago. Not as celebrated as Gell-Mann, but still a hugely important figure for a lot of physics and physicists.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

2 years

Buying some books, in paper as an anti-doomscrolling measure. Hey to @XplodingUnicorn

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

5 years

James Watson's most-liked tweet was copied without attribution from Rosalind Franklin's Twitter feed. #FamousPhysicistsOnTwitter

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

2 months

@focusfronting He's a vey good writer and an exceptional live communicator of science to non-scientific audiences, which is a rare set of skills. I find his going all-in on "Well, actually..." over the last several years a baffling choice.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

7 years

This does not make the list of top ten batshit crazy things associated with Nikola Tesla.

Magic Realism Bot

@MagicRealismBot

7 years

A hummingbird appears next to Nikola Tesla. It says: "Beware of the colour yellow."

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

7 years

Advice on how to turn people away from white supremacist groups, from people with first-hand knowledge:

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

1 month

This is probably the best of the eclipse photos I got from taking the kids up north to a spot where totality lasted about two minutes. Really an incredible experience, well worth the many hours of sitting in traffic.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

6 years

Careful what you reshare

Chris

@ChrisDotWeb

6 years

Let's go ahead and get these out of the way BEFORE #Florence hits... 1 - The shark on the flooded road pic is fake. 2 - Soldiers standing guard at Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is real, but not during hurricane. 3 - The WonderWorks restaurant in Myrtle is already upside down.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

8 years

Depressing how many otherwise smart people think their opponents should be swayed by lines of argument they'd find personally insulting.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

3 years

I find my copyeditor's belief that I know the difference between a hyphen and an em-dash and have purposefully used one rather than the other charmingly optimistic.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

4 years

"I'm an atomic physicist" - boring - academic - "So, you build bombs?" "I'm a quantum mechanic" - spooky - buzzwordy - both can and can't fix your car

Kevin M. Kruse

@KevinMKruse

4 years

"I'm a historian" - boring - academic - is this going to be on the test? "I am a master of the past" - mysterious - ominous - maybe you can time-travel

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

6 months

Here you go, one electron at 10x magnification:

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

5 years

Otto Hahn's Twitter feed us all retweets of Lise Meitner. #FamousPhysicistsOnTwitter

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

9 months

Have you ever played billiards with physics professors?

Brian Chau

@psychosort

9 months

It's commonly known that ethicists are the least ethical people. Are there any other fields like that? Where the people in the field are the worst at what they do?

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

3 years

As promised/threatened yesterday, an explanation of the spin-glass physics that won Giorgio Parisi half a Nobel Prize, on my @ForbesScience blog:

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

7 years

Using the magnetometer in my phone to find drywall screws in the new addition with the Phyphox app:

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

5 years

Sir Isaac Newton's Twitter feed alternates between screenshots of complicated calculations annotated in Latin and quote-tweet dunking on Robert Hooke #FamousPhysicistsOnTwitter

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

5 years

The "Tell Your Dog I Said Hi" sticker on my Chromebook is proving to be a great conversation starter at hotel breakfast. Thanks, @dog_rates

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

4 years

The split-screen coffee sip at 2:39 is what really puts this over the top.

Rich Eisen

@richeisen

4 years

This is remarkable delivery. If it’s not on teleprompter, it’s some of the best broadcasting I’ve ever seen.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

6 years

Bose's letter to Einstein:

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

1 year

I will note again that one of the best policies I've ever implemented in terms of general quality of life is that when my first reaction to something said online is "Oh, go fuck yourself," I don't respond to it in public. A hard policy to stick to, but worth the effort.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

4 years

In which I object to philosophers looking down at the sort of science done by the vast majority of professional scientists: (lunchtime @ForbesScience repost)

In Praise Of ‘Normal Science’

Some words in favor of scientists who choose to work within existing paradigms to make the world a better place.

www.forbes.com

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

5 years

Richard Feynman's Twitter feed is mostly Instagram links to photos of himself at sketchy parties and video clips of bongo playing. #FamousPhysicistsOnTwitter

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

6 years

Just arrived: My author copy of a spiffy new book from MIT Press, to which I contributed a chapter.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

8 months

Doing separation of variables in intermediate quantum today, and it's always fun to watch the math majors squirm when I treat a derivative like a fraction.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

4 years

I haven't been tweeting about this, but some good news: yesterday, my 95-year-old grandmother tested negative for Covid-19, a bit more than 3 weeks after testing positive. Never any symptoms beyond annoyance at being stuck in a nursing home longer.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

3 years

@juliagalef I got a review for one of my books that was just "Lots of pages. Most of them have writing on them." Maddening.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

6 months

ONE HUNDRED BILLION times magnification, and-- holy shit! What's that? Physics as we know it is over... It's been a fun bit, but I'm going to bed. Be excellent to each other.

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Chad Orzel

@orzelc

6 years

I'll donate to his campaign.

Hend Amry

@LibyaLiberty

6 years

The man who saved the wild rabbit from burning wildfires declined a request for an on-camera interview. This Guy 2020.

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