Sam Homiller
@shomiller.com
Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh studying theoretical particle physics. Formerly at Cornell, Harvard, Stony Brook and Illinois. Atlanta baseball fan
Playing Guess Who (animal edition) with the toddler:
3yo: I’m going to choose the duck.
Mom: You’re not supposed to say that out loud
3yo: *whispering* I’m going to choose the duck.
..
Grandma: Is your animal green?
3yo: No, it’s white. It’s the duck.
3yo: I’m going to choose the duck.
Mom: You’re not supposed to say that out loud
3yo: *whispering* I’m going to choose the duck.
..
Grandma: Is your animal green?
3yo: No, it’s white. It’s the duck.
December 30, 2025 at 6:34 PM
Playing Guess Who (animal edition) with the toddler:
3yo: I’m going to choose the duck.
Mom: You’re not supposed to say that out loud
3yo: *whispering* I’m going to choose the duck.
..
Grandma: Is your animal green?
3yo: No, it’s white. It’s the duck.
3yo: I’m going to choose the duck.
Mom: You’re not supposed to say that out loud
3yo: *whispering* I’m going to choose the duck.
..
Grandma: Is your animal green?
3yo: No, it’s white. It’s the duck.
Apologies to the copy editors employed by APS who have to add "boson" after "Higgs" about 60 times in our paper for no reason other than the Physical Review being silly
December 19, 2025 at 4:49 AM
Apologies to the copy editors employed by APS who have to add "boson" after "Higgs" about 60 times in our paper for no reason other than the Physical Review being silly
Reposted by Sam Homiller
European particle physics strategy update summary 😅
December 12, 2025 at 4:08 PM
European particle physics strategy update summary 😅
Reposted by Sam Homiller
Sad to see C.N. Yang passed away, a legendary physicist who despite his achievements was also one of the most underrated physicists of the 20th century and could have won multiple Nobel prizes not just one. He put Stony Brook University on the map and left an indelible impact on the YITP ⚛️🧪
October 18, 2025 at 11:09 AM
Sad to see C.N. Yang passed away, a legendary physicist who despite his achievements was also one of the most underrated physicists of the 20th century and could have won multiple Nobel prizes not just one. He put Stony Brook University on the map and left an indelible impact on the YITP ⚛️🧪
If you see this post a bridge.
(Roberto Clemente Bridge, Pittsburgh)
(Roberto Clemente Bridge, Pittsburgh)
September 30, 2025 at 2:21 PM
If you see this post a bridge.
(Roberto Clemente Bridge, Pittsburgh)
(Roberto Clemente Bridge, Pittsburgh)
Reposted by Sam Homiller
The GRFP lives!! (due end of October)
www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...
www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP)
www.nsf.gov
September 8, 2025 at 6:23 PM
The GRFP lives!! (due end of October)
www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...
www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...
Can confirm lol.
Chicago-O’Hare putting United flights anywhere it can. As new departures are being held due to a “technology issue,” many arrivals cannot reach their gate. www.flightradar24.com/airport/ord
August 7, 2025 at 2:12 AM
Can confirm lol.
Important:
"Just because I’m not on the keyboard—and you have to add two extra steps for me to appear correctly—I’m suddenly the product of some soulless technology?"
The Em Dash Responds to the AI Allegations
“In recent months, a curious fixation has emerged in corners of academia: the em dash. More specifically, the apparent moral panic around how it is...
buff.ly
July 20, 2025 at 12:50 PM
Important:
Reposted by Sam Homiller
Awful news: CMB-S4 is cancelled.
This experiment was massively exciting for the cosmology community. It would have told us about the state of the universe some 400,000 years after the big bang, at a level of precision we can now only dream about
⚛️🧪
www.science.org/content/arti...
This experiment was massively exciting for the cosmology community. It would have told us about the state of the universe some 400,000 years after the big bang, at a level of precision we can now only dream about
⚛️🧪
www.science.org/content/arti...
U.S. abandons hunt for signal of cosmic inflation
Now-canceled CMB-S4 project would have searched the afterglow of the Big Bang for signs of cosmic exponential growth spurt
www.science.org
July 11, 2025 at 11:53 AM
Awful news: CMB-S4 is cancelled.
This experiment was massively exciting for the cosmology community. It would have told us about the state of the universe some 400,000 years after the big bang, at a level of precision we can now only dream about
⚛️🧪
www.science.org/content/arti...
This experiment was massively exciting for the cosmology community. It would have told us about the state of the universe some 400,000 years after the big bang, at a level of precision we can now only dream about
⚛️🧪
www.science.org/content/arti...
Reposted by Sam Homiller
My heart is with my Iranian friends and their families. May everyone live.
June 22, 2025 at 12:49 AM
My heart is with my Iranian friends and their families. May everyone live.
Reposted by Sam Homiller
The president's budget proposal cuts billions in funding from the DOE Office of Science, NIST, NASA, and the NSF — but there’s still time to change it. Tell your lawmakers why they should stand up for science using our letter-writing toolkit, targeted to your state: go.aps.org/3RP9EWF
May 2, 2025 at 9:32 PM
The president's budget proposal cuts billions in funding from the DOE Office of Science, NIST, NASA, and the NSF — but there’s still time to change it. Tell your lawmakers why they should stand up for science using our letter-writing toolkit, targeted to your state: go.aps.org/3RP9EWF
It continues to astound me just how much everything can be so awful and so unserious at the same time
LMAO - White House said it was Harvard's fault that they did not pick up to verify a letter that the admin said was coming, was on govt letterhead, and signed by three agency officials.
Also, the administration stands by the letter. Which was a mistake.
What a clown show.
Also, the administration stands by the letter. Which was a mistake.
What a clown show.
April 19, 2025 at 1:47 AM
It continues to astound me just how much everything can be so awful and so unserious at the same time
atmospheric signatures of life: the “Majorana quasiparticles” of planetary astronomy
April 17, 2025 at 3:13 PM
atmospheric signatures of life: the “Majorana quasiparticles” of planetary astronomy
Reposted by Sam Homiller
Judge Allison Burroughs, an Obama appointee, orders that all recipients be notified of the TRO within 24 hours and that a compliance report be filed with the report within 48 hours.
TRO: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
TRO: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
April 16, 2025 at 4:07 PM
Judge Allison Burroughs, an Obama appointee, orders that all recipients be notified of the TRO within 24 hours and that a compliance report be filed with the report within 48 hours.
TRO: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
TRO: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Colored Feynman diagrams from MadGraph? Is this their April Fools' Day celebration this year?
April 2, 2025 at 4:31 AM
Colored Feynman diagrams from MadGraph? Is this their April Fools' Day celebration this year?
Belle-II weighs in on the RD/RD* anomaly? 👀
(indico.in2p3.fr/event/35965/...)
(indico.in2p3.fr/event/35965/...)
March 26, 2025 at 1:14 PM
Belle-II weighs in on the RD/RD* anomaly? 👀
(indico.in2p3.fr/event/35965/...)
(indico.in2p3.fr/event/35965/...)
Hard to overstate how disruptive this will be for a generation of particle physicists, specifically
March 1, 2025 at 4:45 PM
Hard to overstate how disruptive this will be for a generation of particle physicists, specifically
Ashoke Sen with a response to III:
arxiv.org/abs/2502.07883
But missed the opportunity to title it “New Ideas for Old Physicists”
arxiv.org/abs/2502.07883
But missed the opportunity to title it “New Ideas for Old Physicists”
February 13, 2025 at 5:30 PM
Ashoke Sen with a response to III:
arxiv.org/abs/2502.07883
But missed the opportunity to title it “New Ideas for Old Physicists”
arxiv.org/abs/2502.07883
But missed the opportunity to title it “New Ideas for Old Physicists”
Not sure how I should feel about this page being linked from the calendar with my seminar later this week 😅
physics.illinois.edu/calendar/sem...
(But @mrocek.bsky.social might appreciate it)
physics.illinois.edu/calendar/sem...
(But @mrocek.bsky.social might appreciate it)
The art of Sleeping in Seminars
The art of Sleeping in Seminars
physics.illinois.edu
February 4, 2025 at 3:22 PM
Not sure how I should feel about this page being linked from the calendar with my seminar later this week 😅
physics.illinois.edu/calendar/sem...
(But @mrocek.bsky.social might appreciate it)
physics.illinois.edu/calendar/sem...
(But @mrocek.bsky.social might appreciate it)
At the risk of Tom thinking I have it out for him, Section 1 being "Introduction" and Section 2 being "Conclusions" I think is a paper format we can all aspire to
arxiv.org/abs/2502.01367
arxiv.org/abs/2502.01367
Note on 't Hooft's Shock Wave Commutators From Near Horizon Conformal Field Theory
We construct a finite model of 't Hooft's shock wave commutation relations from the ansatz\cite{Carlip}\cite{Solodukhin}\cite{BZ} that the quantum degrees of freedom in a causal diamond in a solution ...
arxiv.org
February 4, 2025 at 4:43 AM
At the risk of Tom thinking I have it out for him, Section 1 being "Introduction" and Section 2 being "Conclusions" I think is a paper format we can all aspire to
arxiv.org/abs/2502.01367
arxiv.org/abs/2502.01367
We have enough institutions collapsing this month without the dictionary posting this nonsense…
Technically, ‘should of’ is ‘should have,’ but we’re all about showing grace.
January 31, 2025 at 5:04 PM
We have enough institutions collapsing this month without the dictionary posting this nonsense…
Irrationally upset by the number formatting being different in each of these papers:
arxiv.org/abs/2208.08959
arxiv.org/abs/2307.15812
arxiv.org/abs/2501.17697
arxiv.org/abs/2208.08959
arxiv.org/abs/2307.15812
arxiv.org/abs/2501.17697
Old Ideas for New Physicists:1
We review and clarify ideas proposed many years ago for understanding cosmology in a holographic framework. The basic strategy is to use Jacobson's\cite{ted95} identification of Einstein's equations w...
arxiv.org
January 30, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Irrationally upset by the number formatting being different in each of these papers:
arxiv.org/abs/2208.08959
arxiv.org/abs/2307.15812
arxiv.org/abs/2501.17697
arxiv.org/abs/2208.08959
arxiv.org/abs/2307.15812
arxiv.org/abs/2501.17697
This search covers the ~10 GHz range, that's more than enough of an excuse to make the prefix "Wonder" instead of "Giga"
arxiv.org/abs/2501.17119
arxiv.org/abs/2501.17119
First Axion-Like Particle Results from a Broadband Search for Wave-Like Dark Matter in the 44 to 52 $μ$eV Range with a Coaxial Dish Antenna
We present the results from the first axion-like particle search conducted using a dish antenna. The experiment was conducted at room temperature and sensitive to axion-like particles in the $44-52\,μ...
arxiv.org
January 30, 2025 at 1:45 AM
This search covers the ~10 GHz range, that's more than enough of an excuse to make the prefix "Wonder" instead of "Giga"
arxiv.org/abs/2501.17119
arxiv.org/abs/2501.17119
One of the most impactful (for me) technological breakthroughs in my career has been the arXiv fixing the "TeX Source" button to download a properly named .tar file.
January 13, 2025 at 6:56 PM
One of the most impactful (for me) technological breakthroughs in my career has been the arXiv fixing the "TeX Source" button to download a properly named .tar file.