Jamie Zvirzdin
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jamiezvirzdin.com
Jamie Zvirzdin
@jamiezvirzdin.com
Research: Ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays with #machinelearning at #TelescopeArray. Past: Science editor and #ScienceWriting faculty at Johns Hopkins. Essays: The Atlantic, Orion, Aeon, etc. Book: #SubatomicWriting (JHU Press). I worship MacGyver and Picard.
Pinned
Scientists can regain public trust by a) being honest in their work and b) not being so proudly inaccessible in their writing. The best physics writing uses different kinds of stories, and I also tell my own.

aeon.co/essays/to-un...
@aeon.co #scicomm #writing #editing #publishing #highenergyastro ⚛️
To understand physics, we need to tell – and hear – stories | Aeon Essays
Don’t be intimidated by physics: it is made of stories and metaphors. Learn these and the field will open up to you
aeon.co
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C7t...

Jamie Zvirzdin links principles of physics with those of grammar and linguistics, adds a pinch of poetics, and serves up a tasty guide to scientific thinking and writerly writing.
—Christopher Joyce, Correspondent, Science Desk, NPR

www.subatomicwriting.com
🧪⚛️🔭✏️
Subatomic Writing Teaser Trailer
YouTube video by Jamie Zvirzdin
www.youtube.com
November 5, 2025 at 2:29 PM
Once upon a time my friends told me about a Science & Religion essay contest, that I had to do it. I wrote the damn thing in a week and won 2nd place and $5,000. At the heart of it is the symbol of the urbs quadrata, like the unit circle centered at a Cartesian origin. 🧪🔭⚛️
issues.org/shuddering-b...
"Shuddering Before the Beautiful": Trains of Thought Across the Mormon Cosmos
If then th’ Astronomers, whereas they spie A new-found Starre, their Opticks magnifie, How brave are those, who with their Engine, can Bring man to heaven, and heaven againe to man? —John Donne If you...
issues.org
October 15, 2025 at 10:16 AM
I'm reading The Complete Sherlock Holmes to my son at night. Sherlock says in "A Scandal in Bohemia" (p. 187),

"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."

Wise words.
🧪⚛️🔭
September 16, 2025 at 12:13 PM
The world can be grim. What sustains us? Meaningful work and kind interactions sustain me, along with good memories. Teaching my son to read is one of these. (We loved these foam letters someone gave us!)

His determination still fuels me.
#parenting #love #education
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNiS...
Happy Scrub Five, Six, Seven
YouTube video by Max Facts: The Universe Explained
www.youtube.com
September 14, 2025 at 9:21 AM
Reposted by Jamie Zvirzdin
We invite you to learn about the link between topology and space engineering when it comes to solving the three-body problem!

Find out in our latest blog post by Arthur Limoge: structures.uni-heidelberg.de/blog/posts/2...

#threebodyproblem #math #spaceexploration #topology
August 28, 2025 at 8:13 AM
I am citable! Check it out:

Zvirzdin, J. (2025, January 27). Psst . . . Your AI Is Showing: How to Put Your Own Voice in Scientific Papers. Workshop on Machine Learning for Analysis of High-Energy Cosmic Particles, University of Delaware. doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

#highenergyastro #ai ⚛️🧪
Psst . . . Your AI Is Showing: How to Put Your Own Voice in Scientific Papers
AI tools shape writing style in ways that dull clarity, variety, rhythm, and voice. Editors, publishers, grant-givers, and professors are familiar with—and tired of—the linguistic tics of the AI voice...
doi.org
August 26, 2025 at 11:43 PM
🧪⚛️🔭 Give back, nominate someone who helped you.
Nominations are open for the 2025 #WileyResearchHeroes Prize!

Know researchers making a difference through open science, inclusion, or innovation?

🧡 Celebrate the heroes of research.

Nominate them now:
👉 ow.ly/PF9e50WLx0e
August 26, 2025 at 4:23 PM
Props to @kurzgesagt.org for another fantastic and supremely important science video, this time on the benefits and costs of alcohol. Take a moment to watch it, please.

Check yourself before you wreck yourself. Or others.
🧪

youtu.be/aOwmt39L2IQ?...
Alcohol is AMAZING
YouTube video by Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell
youtu.be
August 20, 2025 at 4:45 PM
We just published our second paper on this topic! Our #TelescopeArray detectors help us understand energy mechanisms behind both cosmic rays 🌠and lightning.🌩️ Support your local scientists and the National Science Foundation! 💞💸

agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

#highenergyastro 🧪⚛️
Time‐Resolved Leader Spectra of Downward Terrestrial Gamma‐Ray Flashes Observed at the Telescope Array Surface Detector
Time-resolved leader spectra associated with two downward Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes (TGFs)–a low peak current and a high peak current event–are presented The high-peak-current event exhibits ...
agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
August 20, 2025 at 11:24 AM
Fantastic article by @rhettallain.bsky.social. I grow tired of physics problems that do not model real life. It only leads to physicists who do not know how to model real life. We need more of this, a careful examination of assumptions.⚛️
July 28, 2025 at 4:56 AM
I remotely operate sensitive cosmic-ray telescopes in the West Desert of Utah. Wild that we can pick up the light from this wildfire. Be safe, Sevier County!

Select Band="Fire Temperature RGB"
www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/goes/wfo_ban...

#Utah #UofU #TelescopeArray #highenergyastro 🧪
July 26, 2025 at 4:30 AM
Word to the wise, this happened yesterday. I'm in Europe and move frequently for my husband's job. I value staying in touch with friends across the globe. But to be locked out of both Facebook and Instagram with NO warning made me realize I need to write down names/other contact info ASAP.
July 23, 2025 at 10:38 AM
Scientists can regain public trust by a) being honest in their work and b) not being so proudly inaccessible in their writing. The best physics writing uses different kinds of stories, and I also tell my own.

aeon.co/essays/to-un...
@aeon.co #scicomm #writing #editing #publishing #highenergyastro ⚛️
To understand physics, we need to tell – and hear – stories | Aeon Essays
Don’t be intimidated by physics: it is made of stories and metaphors. Learn these and the field will open up to you
aeon.co
July 22, 2025 at 2:10 PM
If you research the physics ⚛️ of extreme objects/particles/environments or high/ultrahigh-energy emissions from space, sign up to post to our #Bluesky #highenergyastro feed.

I moderate this feed as part of the most excellent Astrosky Ecosystem.🔭
Join us!🧪
astrosky.eco/feeds/highen...
@emily.space
astrosky.eco
July 10, 2025 at 11:30 AM
Reposted by Jamie Zvirzdin
Reposted by Jamie Zvirzdin
!!! new on work led by U.C. Berkeley postdoc, Yuhan Yao 🦖

incl. comments from @gymleadererica.bsky.social et al.

"Like a scene out of a sci-fi movie, astronomers using NASA telescopes have found 'Space Jaws.'"

🧪🔭☄️ #womeninSTEM #highenergyastro

science.nasa.gov/missions/hub...
NASA's Hubble Pinpoints Roaming Massive Black Hole - NASA Science
A sneaky black hole betrayed its presence to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in a newly identified tidal disruption event.
science.nasa.gov
May 8, 2025 at 5:26 PM
Hey, the PDF of my 3-hour workshop at the U. of Delaware has over 100 downloads now! Not bad!
zenodo.org/records/1511...

If you teach science, give your students the time and opportunity to find their own #writing voices.

Textbook I wrote for my #JHU students:
www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/...
🧪⚛️🔭
Psst . . . Your AI Is Showing: How to Put Your Own Voice in Scientific Papers
AI tools shape writing style in ways that dull clarity, variety, rhythm, and voice. Editors, publishers, grant-givers, and professors are familiar with—and tired of—the linguistic tics of the AI voice...
zenodo.org
June 24, 2025 at 10:29 AM
And here is one of the solutions to the 3-Body Problem. There are hundreds! It is a good reminder that we often focus too much on a problem and not enough on the solutions.

This is Christopher Moore's original (nontrivial) solution from 1993:
youtu.be/EQ5K6KTVaQc

⚛️🧪 #highenergyastro
JZ 3-Body Solution Short Animation 06-21-25
YouTube video by Jamie Zvirzdin
youtu.be
June 21, 2025 at 10:10 AM
I find it wildly cathartic to be taking both #Chaos and #Cosmology this semester at #JHU. Insane amount of work but marvelous material (Thank you @stevenstrogatz.com and @bsryden.bsky.social for your writing styles!).
Dramatic music for (melo)dramatic times.
⚛️🧪 #highenergyastro
youtu.be/HGbs1mcju0Q
JZ 3-Body Problem Short Animation 06-21-25
YouTube video by Jamie Zvirzdin
youtu.be
June 21, 2025 at 9:48 AM
My Australian Shepherd is absurdly beautiful even when covered in mud after many miles of trail running with my husband. I will never get over how marvelous she is. Husband's pretty great too. 😂 #pets
June 5, 2025 at 7:15 AM
This is Andrew being acted upon by the cat force, which is far more powerful than any other force in the universe. Dimensionally speaking,
😺 Force = (Mass of 🐈) * (Length of 🐈)/(Time the🐈decides to remain)^2 . . . * ♾️.

It's a very positive force. 😹🩵
⚛️🧪
May 29, 2025 at 7:40 AM
A room with a GREAT view. Currently waiting for lightning to clear up before we can open #UofU #TelescopeArray doors and capture ultrahigh-energy cosmic-ray particles.

Also studying for #JHU graduate course, Chaos and Its Applications. Also, cat. #highenergyastro #fundscience 🧪⚛️ #particlephysics
May 27, 2025 at 4:38 AM
Happy 18th anniversary to us!
May 15, 2025 at 9:24 AM
Students are so intent on #publishing they turn to #AI, but AI is STILL a bad writer with identifiable writing patterns editors easily see.

If you're a professor/administrator, hire me to come inspire your students to find their own #sciencewriting voices!
🧪⚛️🔭

A taste:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
Psst . . . Your AI Is Showing: How to Put Your Own Voice in Scientific Papers
AI tools shape writing style in ways that dull clarity, variety, rhythm, and voice. Editors, publishers, grant-givers, and professors are familiar with—and tired of—the linguistic tics of the AI voice...
doi.org
May 9, 2025 at 10:04 AM
#Bones to Booth on the Tooth Fairy: "I don't want to teach our daughter that it is okay for a stranger to break into her room and steal discarded body parts."

😂😂😂 I totally agree. It has been great watching this show for the first time. Thanks @emilydeschanel.bsky.social & Co.
May 5, 2025 at 8:08 AM