@anke That's how all good projects happen, so probably.

Anyway, today is the last day of April. Tick tock.

In case anyone is wondering, the committee approved Einstein's dissertation.

@thomasfuchs How so? (I have no idea!)

Here is what Einstein's 1905 looked like:

March 17: Finish photoelectric effect paper

April 30: "Uh, I should probably finish my dissertation?"

May 11: Publish Brownian Motion paper

May: Finalize core ideas of special relativity

June 30: Publish 1st special relativity paper

September 27: Publish 2nd special relativity paper

Just to put this in context, Einstein completed his dissertation six weeks after submitting his photoelectric effect paper, and less than two weeks before he sent in his Brownian motion paper.

He then focused on special relativity in mid-May, and submitted that paper in late June.

Albert Einstein completed his dissertation “A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions” #OTD in 1905.

When he submitted it to the University of Zürich on July 20, his committee complained that it was a little short. It was only 21 pages long!

https://www.research-collection.ethz.ch/bitstream/handle/20.500.11850/139872/eth-30378-01.pdf

(This is all my wife’s handiwork, restoring the previous owner’s once-lovely garden that had gone to seed.)

Cut back a tall stand of dead pampas grass and found this beauty.

Pretty good flowers, imo.

@glennf Weird. Wonder why it hit some but not others.

Speaking this into existence: Someone please put together a lavish coffee table book that’s just ads from old issues of Dragon and White Dwarf.

An #OTD thread from last year, about the scientific contributions of Julius Oppenheimer.

A lot of "common knowledge" about black holes – infinite redshift, the slow progress of an infalling observer from the point of view of a distant spectator – can be traced back to an influential paper Oppenheimer wrote in 1939.
https://mastodon.social/@mcnees/110245056828062741

@design_law Uh, welcome to Chicago!

@curmudgeonaf No, this is an editor made by @panic

“Albert Einstein Lived Here”

Herb Block's cartoon memorializing Einstein appeared in the Washington Post #OTD in 1955, the day after Einstein passed away.

Image: Herb Block / Library of Congress

Lol

Hat tip to the folks at @panic for the planet-themed app icons in Nova.

Someone is getting rid of all their old Roger Zelazny paperbacks in my neighborhood’s little free library, and I wish I knew who it was so I could save them some time and take them all at once.

A clean desk is a sure sign of a sick mind.
https://mastodon.social/@mcnees/110220478118984068