Steve McCormick
@quasilocal.com
Sweden-based, Germany-adjacent, Scottish-Australian Mathematician. Mathematician who pretends to be a physicist sometimes (convincing nobody). Maker of dubious memes, and exploring my new home near the arctic circle (Luleå).
Reposted by Steve McCormick
Okay, now I’ve found their “Bagpipe Practice Room” I think Scotrail might just be having us on!
August 30, 2025 at 3:30 PM
Okay, now I’ve found their “Bagpipe Practice Room” I think Scotrail might just be having us on!
Anyone in the math GR / geometric analysis communiy know anyone who's in need of a postdoc around 1 year from now and would be interested in coming to the frozen wastelands of the north? (And has/will have a non-Euro PhD)
August 30, 2025 at 1:37 PM
Anyone in the math GR / geometric analysis communiy know anyone who's in need of a postdoc around 1 year from now and would be interested in coming to the frozen wastelands of the north? (And has/will have a non-Euro PhD)
I asked ChatGPT if it knew who I am based off of our chats. The answer was (obviously) yes 😅
August 11, 2025 at 12:28 PM
I asked ChatGPT if it knew who I am based off of our chats. The answer was (obviously) yes 😅
Reposted by Steve McCormick
If kids’ schools trained them for work based on what everyone thought the hot new technology was going to be, both my kids would have spent the past several years learning about the blockchain. This is why schools don’t attempt to do workplace training: life is pretty long.
August 9, 2025 at 11:23 AM
If kids’ schools trained them for work based on what everyone thought the hot new technology was going to be, both my kids would have spent the past several years learning about the blockchain. This is why schools don’t attempt to do workplace training: life is pretty long.
A last little bit of swedish summer yesterday
Guitar and some beers, spotted some berries, and then made a little spiky friend
Guitar and some beers, spotted some berries, and then made a little spiky friend
August 10, 2025 at 9:52 AM
A last little bit of swedish summer yesterday
Guitar and some beers, spotted some berries, and then made a little spiky friend
Guitar and some beers, spotted some berries, and then made a little spiky friend
Reposted by Steve McCormick
For the math folks on here: NSF has suspended Terry Tao's grant. www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/...
NSF Award Search: Award # 2347850
Structure theory for measure-preserving systems, additive combinatorics, and correlations of multiplicative functions
www.nsf.gov
July 31, 2025 at 10:44 PM
For the math folks on here: NSF has suspended Terry Tao's grant. www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/...
A friend is currently advertising a PhD position in harmonic analysis (Melbourne + Chennai*): lashi-bandara.github.io/toc/supervis...
Pass it on if you know anyone who might be interested.
* Position is joint between Deakin University IIT-Madras, with 3 years in Melbourne and 1 year in Chennai
Pass it on if you know anyone who might be interested.
* Position is joint between Deakin University IIT-Madras, with 3 years in Melbourne and 1 year in Chennai
PhD Project - Kato Square Root Problem on Riemannian Spaces - Lashi Bandara
lashi-bandara.github.io
August 1, 2025 at 8:06 AM
A friend is currently advertising a PhD position in harmonic analysis (Melbourne + Chennai*): lashi-bandara.github.io/toc/supervis...
Pass it on if you know anyone who might be interested.
* Position is joint between Deakin University IIT-Madras, with 3 years in Melbourne and 1 year in Chennai
Pass it on if you know anyone who might be interested.
* Position is joint between Deakin University IIT-Madras, with 3 years in Melbourne and 1 year in Chennai
Reposted by Steve McCormick
My last living musical hero is still my hero but unfortunately no longer living. RIP to the great, great Mr. Tom Lehrer.
July 27, 2025 at 5:33 PM
My last living musical hero is still my hero but unfortunately no longer living. RIP to the great, great Mr. Tom Lehrer.
New paper day! 🥳
arxiv.org/abs/2506.11841
arxiv.org/abs/2506.11841
The Volume-Renormalized Mass from a Hamiltonian Perspective
We demonstrate that the volume-renormalized mass for asymptotically hyperbolic manifolds recently introduced by the authors can be deduced from a reduced Hamiltonian perspective. In order to do this, ...
arxiv.org
June 16, 2025 at 5:11 AM
New paper day! 🥳
arxiv.org/abs/2506.11841
arxiv.org/abs/2506.11841
I'm told that when I was really little, I was running into the motion sensor to open the door of a store before arriving customers triggered it
When I was visibly upset for being too slow, a group stepped back and let the door close again so I could "open it" for them -- it was the band Wet Wet Wet
When I was visibly upset for being too slow, a group stepped back and let the door close again so I could "open it" for them -- it was the band Wet Wet Wet
Right folks. Feeling rather down at the moment so bringing back an oldie
Please Quote this with your most minor celebrity interaction
Please Quote this with your most minor celebrity interaction
June 14, 2025 at 8:43 AM
I'm told that when I was really little, I was running into the motion sensor to open the door of a store before arriving customers triggered it
When I was visibly upset for being too slow, a group stepped back and let the door close again so I could "open it" for them -- it was the band Wet Wet Wet
When I was visibly upset for being too slow, a group stepped back and let the door close again so I could "open it" for them -- it was the band Wet Wet Wet
Seems arXiv now uses AI to try to convince you that you're misclassifying your own paper's subject area 🙃
June 14, 2025 at 8:23 AM
Seems arXiv now uses AI to try to convince you that you're misclassifying your own paper's subject area 🙃
The amusing thing is that there *is* an etymological connection here... And of course some variation of calling townspeople "burgers" exists in almost all European languages. It's where "bourgeois" comes from even. And connected to place names like Hamburg, Edinburgh, Strasbourg, etc. (I think)
I completely forgot citizens are called burgers in the Netherlands
Are you fucking shitting me?
May 24, 2025 at 12:49 PM
The amusing thing is that there *is* an etymological connection here... And of course some variation of calling townspeople "burgers" exists in almost all European languages. It's where "bourgeois" comes from even. And connected to place names like Hamburg, Edinburgh, Strasbourg, etc. (I think)
Can any physicist explain this idea of boundedness of the Euclidean Einstein-Hilbert action in the context of this paper? (Purely from a GR/geometric perspective, no path integrals)
arxiv.org/abs/2505.13600
arxiv.org/abs/2505.13600
Constraints are not enough
The Euclidean Einstein-Hilbert action is well-known to be unbounded below and thus to raise many questions regarding the definition of the gravitational path integral. A variety of works since the lat...
arxiv.org
May 24, 2025 at 11:58 AM
Can any physicist explain this idea of boundedness of the Euclidean Einstein-Hilbert action in the context of this paper? (Purely from a GR/geometric perspective, no path integrals)
arxiv.org/abs/2505.13600
arxiv.org/abs/2505.13600
Reposted by Steve McCormick
Not only is this true, there are 33 whole-ass mentions of this in the script and each one is freaking hilarious
whills.nu/4/sw4.html#h...
whills.nu/4/sw4.html#h...
May 11, 2025 at 4:24 AM
Not only is this true, there are 33 whole-ass mentions of this in the script and each one is freaking hilarious
whills.nu/4/sw4.html#h...
whills.nu/4/sw4.html#h...
Just got some art done by Alexandr Elichev for my latest homebrew Frosthaven class and wanted to share it somewhere :)
May 9, 2025 at 6:41 PM
Just got some art done by Alexandr Elichev for my latest homebrew Frosthaven class and wanted to share it somewhere :)
How normal is it to write words correctly, but write the letters in the wrong order?
Sometimes when I write fast, I fill in the letters the wrong way. Eg. When writing "Letter" in the middle of a sentence I might write the "ett" then the "L" in front of them and then the "er"
... it feels weird
Sometimes when I write fast, I fill in the letters the wrong way. Eg. When writing "Letter" in the middle of a sentence I might write the "ett" then the "L" in front of them and then the "er"
... it feels weird
May 2, 2025 at 10:29 AM
How normal is it to write words correctly, but write the letters in the wrong order?
Sometimes when I write fast, I fill in the letters the wrong way. Eg. When writing "Letter" in the middle of a sentence I might write the "ett" then the "L" in front of them and then the "er"
... it feels weird
Sometimes when I write fast, I fill in the letters the wrong way. Eg. When writing "Letter" in the middle of a sentence I might write the "ett" then the "L" in front of them and then the "er"
... it feels weird
April 28, 2025 at 6:12 AM
Reposted by Steve McCormick
I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance. I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return.
April 18, 2025 at 1:02 AM
I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance. I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return.
Reposted by Steve McCormick
Reposted by Steve McCormick
On the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, we thought we'd answer a question that's often asked,
"If they raised the Mary Rose, why not raise the Titanic?"
Allow our scaled diagram to explain...
"If they raised the Mary Rose, why not raise the Titanic?"
Allow our scaled diagram to explain...
April 15, 2025 at 8:21 AM
On the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, we thought we'd answer a question that's often asked,
"If they raised the Mary Rose, why not raise the Titanic?"
Allow our scaled diagram to explain...
"If they raised the Mary Rose, why not raise the Titanic?"
Allow our scaled diagram to explain...
Someone should make a collage of all the posts where people predicted this the moment he pivoted to weird religious zealot
April 4, 2025 at 2:59 PM
Someone should make a collage of all the posts where people predicted this the moment he pivoted to weird religious zealot
Reposted by Steve McCormick
I apologise for nothing
Mr god damn Brightside. I don't even think it's a bad song but I've been to way too many house parties over the years full of drunk millennials screaming the chorus at top of their lungs. It's just ruined forever.
Fuck your favourite song. Tell me your least favourite song. The one that makes you die inside the moment you hear the first 3 seconds.
March 30, 2025 at 11:49 AM
I apologise for nothing
The other day in a lecture I was using an outstretched arm like a traffic cop to indicate vectors in different directions and then after something like i+2j+k I ended up saying "whoops, nearly did an Elon Musk impersonation" moment 🙃
March 30, 2025 at 7:57 AM
The other day in a lecture I was using an outstretched arm like a traffic cop to indicate vectors in different directions and then after something like i+2j+k I ended up saying "whoops, nearly did an Elon Musk impersonation" moment 🙃
Reposted by Steve McCormick
I received a heartbreaking email today: A paper in a special issue I’m editing is being retracted because one of its authors is afraid of losing their job and their legal status in the U.S. if they publish a scientific study on evolution. Yes, on evolution, nature's engine of diversity.
March 29, 2025 at 11:52 PM
I received a heartbreaking email today: A paper in a special issue I’m editing is being retracted because one of its authors is afraid of losing their job and their legal status in the U.S. if they publish a scientific study on evolution. Yes, on evolution, nature's engine of diversity.