Public timeline, page 2

Notices

1. Stephen Sekula (steve@chirp.cooleysekula.net)'s status on Saturday, 04-Nov-2023 23:10:17 UTC Stephen Sekula
   From mcnees@mastodon.social on Mastodon: The High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR), completed in 1965, is just down the road from the X-10 site. If you like well-designed control panels from the 1960s, please enjoy this beauty. A true 👨🍳🤌💋 of a control panel.
2. Stephen Sekula (steve@chirp.cooleysekula.net)'s status on Saturday, 04-Nov-2023 21:35:15 UTC Stephen Sekula
   Hey, while I have got your attention let me aim some light at my co- # author , S. James Gates, Jr. Jim is awesome. He's recent past president of the American Physical Society and an excellent theoretical physicist. He's also been an inspiration to me in the way I engage students in the research enterprise. Learn more: https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=gDCbBWfhJ1 o https://www. symmetrymagazine.org/article/j im-gates-gives-back And check out his book, "Proving Einstein Right" written with Cathie Pelletier! # FediBookFair
3. Stephen Sekula (steve@chirp.cooleysekula.net)'s status on Saturday, 04-Nov-2023 21:30:22 UTC Stephen Sekula
   So what is "Reality in the Shadows"? It's the story of the cosmos as we understand it now. It's a glimpse at how ideas, technology, and observations merge to make a consistent, useful, and reproducible understanding of reality. It's also honest about the limits of knowledge and what we know we DON'T know right now. But if anything, it's a story of how humans have, time and again, triumphed in shining a little more light in the cosmos. https://www. amazon.com/Reality-Shadows-Wha t-Hecks-Higgs/dp/1936411393 # FediBookFair https://chirp.cooleysekula.net/attachment/bc87734742c8d19f0bc622cf0c57821130a33df8927b1dae61bac538482d4c3e/view
4. Stephen Sekula (steve@chirp.cooleysekula.net)'s status on Saturday, 04-Nov-2023 20:30:14 UTC Stephen Sekula
   My part in the story of "Heck" took more than a year. While my fingerprints (mixed with those of my co- # authors ) are all over the final version of the book, my most direct contributions were Chapter 5, "Finding Reality"; Chapters 6 and 15, "What the Heck's the Higgs?" Parts 1 and 2; and chapter 7, "A Sky of Shadows". I recently shared this for # DarkMatterDay , but you can listen to a free reading by me of Chapter 7: https:// media.cooleysekula.net/w/mXjBq T2F55zdhvtERHcJsu # fedibookfair
5. Stephen Sekula (steve@chirp.cooleysekula.net)'s status on Saturday, 04-Nov-2023 20:15:15 UTC Stephen Sekula
   The publisher, Otto, as well as Frank and Jim were happy enough with my comments that they conspired to invite me to join the # writing party. We did all our communicating by phone. To this day, I have never met my co- # authors in person. Sadly, I will never get to meet Frank, as he passed away a few years ago. We did everything by email + phone. My first task was to take the original chapters and rework the order of material and subjects. That took months but improved the flow. # fedibookfair https://chirp.cooleysekula.net/attachment/784686ca04e6dc0dac0be7d0cbd6c6abdf6f74c830d47589b0a3f5de0e9417f6/view
6. Stephen Sekula (steve@chirp.cooleysekula.net)'s status on Saturday, 04-Nov-2023 18:20:13 UTC Stephen Sekula
   So how did I become involved in "Heck"? Enter two other important characters in the story. When the project stalled after the # Higgs discovery, Frank and Jim decided they wanted a third party to look over the book to see if they should keep going. Frank's grandson was a student at my university, SMU, and knew I was a physicist. He asked if I might want to review the manuscript. Frank and Jim's publisher, Otto Barz (YBK Publishers) looped me in as an external reviewer. # FediBookFair
7. Stephen Sekula (steve@chirp.cooleysekula.net)'s status on Saturday, 04-Nov-2023 18:05:14 UTC Stephen Sekula
   If you are curious about the day the # Higgs particle was discovered, I have an audio diary I made as part of a short podcast series I did back in the early teens. This episode takes audio I captured the day the discovery was announced by the # CMS and # ATLAS experiments and mixes them in with my commentary. https:// steve.cooleysekula.net/goingup alleys/2012/07/05/going-up-alleys-podcast-episode-3-diary-of-a-discovery/ This record became part of "Heck", specifically the end of Chapter 5, "What the Heck's the Higgs? (Part 1)" # FediBookFair
8. Stephen Sekula (steve@chirp.cooleysekula.net)'s status on Saturday, 04-Nov-2023 12:55:15 UTC Stephen Sekula
   I am not 100% clear on the details, but the abbreviated version of the next step for "Heck" was something like: Frank took a course from S. James Gates Jr. (Jim Gates), approached him about joining the book project, and Jim (being awesome) agreed. A supersymmetry theorist and a rocket scientist were now embarked on a # writing project. Then the # Higgs particle was discovered, and so they tell me, the project stalled again. They needed someone with Higgs expertise. # fedibookfair https://chirp.cooleysekula.net/attachment/009e76932a1be555aa840ef1993031dcac45241824da487b33466435293f15fa/view
9. Stephen Sekula (steve@chirp.cooleysekula.net)'s status on Saturday, 04-Nov-2023 11:45:22 UTC Stephen Sekula
   "Reality in the Shadows", or just "Heck" for short, began long before I was a co- # author . It was a passion project of Frank Blitzer, a literal rocket scientist (he worked on the Apollo moon missions, especially the guidance system). He was fascinated by subatomic # ParticlePhysics . So he set about trying to write this book for his kids/grandkids. So he told it, he made progress but got stuck ... he was not a particle physicist. So he needed a co-author. Enter Jim Gates. # FediBookFair https://chirp.cooleysekula.net/attachment/108f45a27128d15b0c48befca19ae8693c45139a677f5ad25830c1cabc8168b7/view
10. Stephen Sekula (steve@chirp.cooleysekula.net)'s status on Saturday, 04-Nov-2023 10:20:16 UTC Stephen Sekula
    This weekend is the # FediBookFair ! I am the (co)#author of two non-fiction books (with more on the way … more about that on Sunday): “Reality in the Shadows (or) What the Heck’s the Higgs?” and “The Friendly Physics Guide to Nuclear and Particle Physics in Modern Medicine (Volumes I and II)”. Today, I’ll share some stories about # writing “Reality in the Shadows” or just simply “Heck”, as my publisher and co-authors casually referred to it. :-) I also welcome questions about # physics today! https://chirp.cooleysekula.net/attachment/5a86cbb9477b5336156448a4e0fb7abb020693142bf56742f0ef307572232c11/view
11. Stephen Sekula (steve@chirp.cooleysekula.net)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 23:31:36 UTC Stephen Sekula
    Saw this kinda awesome helicopter thing swooping over the neighborhood this morning. https://chirp.cooleysekula.net/attachment/9af9f9206af2e6fe470620efb1abed81fac39df19d786fca34f14c9e32135e79/view
12. Stephen Sekula (steve@chirp.cooleysekula.net)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 23:30:17 UTC Stephen Sekula
    When a # cat tucks himself into an enclosure one size too small. https://chirp.cooleysekula.net/attachment/4c54cd48c1e0ce66aff119caa5020b0562b180abf20817f1c44a0b4d7901963c/view
13. Stephen Sekula (steve@chirp.cooleysekula.net)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 12:40:15 UTC Stephen Sekula
    From shadowserver@infosec.exchange on Mastodon: 36 IPs seen last 24 hours testing for Atlassian Confluence CVE-2023-22518 critical RCE. POST requests to '/json/setup-restore.action'
14. Stephen Sekula (steve@chirp.cooleysekula.net)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 11:30:17 UTC Stephen Sekula
    A reminder that the first # FediBookFair is this weekend. I will likely blast out little bits of backstory on the # writing of my first two non-fiction books, and I am happy to take (and try to discuss) questions on # physics , # particlephysics , and # astrophysics during the weekend! https:// mastodon.cooleysekula.net/@ste ve/111326732129359842 Find my books on Amazon, linked from here: https:// steve.cooleysekula.net/books And make sure to follow the # FediBookFair hashtag to listen to other # authors in the fediverse!
15. Stephen Sekula (steve@chirp.cooleysekula.net)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 01:05:14 UTC Stephen Sekula
    From arstechnica@mastodon.social on Mastodon: Guilty: Sam Bankman-Fried convicted on all counts after monthlong trial Bankman-Fried convicted on seven charges, faces maximum sentence of 110 years. https:// arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20 23/11/guilty-sam-bankman-fried-convicted-on-all-counts-after-monthlong-trial/?utm_brand=arstechnica
16. Stephen Sekula (steve@chirp.cooleysekula.net)'s status on Friday, 03-Nov-2023 00:50:16 UTC Stephen Sekula
    From AkaSci@fosstodon.org on Mastodon: Here is the one of the first images from Lucy's encounter with asteroid Dinkinesh. Not only is it a beautiful image of this small world never seen before but it reveals that tiny Dinkinesh has a companion moon! The image was taken at 12:55 p.m. EDT (1655 UTC) Nov. 1, 2023, within a minute of closest approach, from a range of ~430 km. Sizes of the 2 objects: ~790 m and ~220 m. Earlier observations had hinted at Dinkinesh being a binary object. https://www. nasa.gov/image-article/nasas-l ucy-spacecraft-discovers-2nd-asteroid-during-dinkinesh-flyby/?utm_source=TWITTER
17. Stephen Sekula (steve@chirp.cooleysekula.net)'s status on Thursday, 02-Nov-2023 22:25:13 UTC Stephen Sekula
    From fraser@m.universetoday.com on Mastodon: In 1987, the closest supernova in modern times flashed in our skies. Even though it was in the Large Magellanic Cloud, 168,000 light-years from Earth, astronomers detected the light and neutrinos from the supernova 1987A. It would be decades before the first gravitational wave observatory would come online. Astronomers have searched through gravitational wave data to see if there's a continuous signal coming from the supernova remnant, a rapidly spinning neutron star. http:// arxiv.org/abs/2310.19964
18. Stephen Sekula (steve@chirp.cooleysekula.net)'s status on Thursday, 02-Nov-2023 11:05:14 UTC Stephen Sekula
    From vicgrinberg@mastodon.social on Mastodon: Caution! X-ray Mirrors have sharp edges. # AboutToday # XraysAreTheBestRays # XMMNewton
19. Stephen Sekula (steve@chirp.cooleysekula.net)'s status on Thursday, 02-Nov-2023 01:25:14 UTC Stephen Sekula
    Second evening of curling lessons went better than the first evening, but I have a lot to learn. Coordination is my big problem, and this will come with a lot more practice. I just need that additional practice!
20. Stephen Sekula (steve@chirp.cooleysekula.net)'s status on Thursday, 02-Nov-2023 01:20:14 UTC Stephen Sekula
    From fraser@m.universetoday.com on Mastodon: As far as we know, black holes can only be formed by the death of massive stars, but a persistent theory says that black holes of all masses could have formed directly in the early Universe. These primordial black holes would help explain several mysteries in astronomy: outlier mergers of black holes, dark matter, and young supermassive black holes. How are they different from stellar mass black holes, and what upcoming instruments could detect them? http:// arxiv.org/abs/2310.19857