Chris Poulton
@chrispoulton.bsky.social
Physicist, researcher in photonics. Avid consumer of books and coffee. Professor and Head of Physics at UTS; all opinions are his own etc.
Reposted by Chris Poulton
With Tom Lehrer's passing, I suppose this is a moment to share the story of the prank he played on the National Security Agency, and how it went undiscovered for nearly 60 years.
July 27, 2025 at 9:01 PM
With Tom Lehrer's passing, I suppose this is a moment to share the story of the prank he played on the National Security Agency, and how it went undiscovered for nearly 60 years.
Great news: our tutorial paper on statistical methods for Brillouin spectroscopy is now out! Brillouin spectroscopy is often messy, with multiple closely-spaced spectral peaks which may have weird shapes; statistical methods help you separate the different features.
pubs.aip.org/aip/app/arti...
pubs.aip.org/aip/app/arti...
Statistical data analysis methods in Brillouin spectroscopy: Tutorial
The non-contact and label-free nature of Brillouin microscopy, a type of optical elastography, is contributing to the growing popularity of this technology worl
pubs.aip.org
June 9, 2025 at 11:53 PM
Great news: our tutorial paper on statistical methods for Brillouin spectroscopy is now out! Brillouin spectroscopy is often messy, with multiple closely-spaced spectral peaks which may have weird shapes; statistical methods help you separate the different features.
pubs.aip.org/aip/app/arti...
pubs.aip.org/aip/app/arti...
It's because banh mi are totally awesome
amp.abc.net.au/article/1052...
amp.abc.net.au/article/1052...
Why are Australians obsessed with bánh mì, the Vietnamese roll with the complex history? - ABC News
amp.abc.net.au
May 11, 2025 at 10:06 PM
It's because banh mi are totally awesome
amp.abc.net.au/article/1052...
amp.abc.net.au/article/1052...
A greatly underappreciated of Australian democracy: polls close and the result is known 3 hours later. Paper ballots, ranked-choice voting, no fancy tech needed. #AusVotes25
May 3, 2025 at 12:03 PM
A greatly underappreciated of Australian democracy: polls close and the result is known 3 hours later. Paper ballots, ranked-choice voting, no fancy tech needed. #AusVotes25
Best thing about voting in Australia. #democracysausage
May 2, 2025 at 10:36 PM
Best thing about voting in Australia. #democracysausage
New paper shows that sound can move faster than the speed of light!*
*Terms and conditions apply.
pubs.aip.org/aip/app/arti...
*Terms and conditions apply.
pubs.aip.org/aip/app/arti...
Quasi-solitons and stable superluminal opto-acoustic pulses in Brillouin scattering
We theoretically and numerically study the evolution of soliton-like waves supported by stimulated Brillouin scattering. First, the emergence and unusual behavi
pubs.aip.org
March 12, 2025 at 8:23 PM
New paper shows that sound can move faster than the speed of light!*
*Terms and conditions apply.
pubs.aip.org/aip/app/arti...
*Terms and conditions apply.
pubs.aip.org/aip/app/arti...
This gets to the heart of a big problem with AI in education. Calculators and other tools outsourced the lower-level tasks to a machine. LLMs tempt students to outsource the higher-level tasks as well.
This is what's so baffling about so many suggestions for AI in the humanities classroom: they mistake the product for the point. Writing outlines and essays is important not because you need to make outlines and essays but because that's how you learn to think with/through complex ideas.
I'm sure many have said this before but I'm reading a student-facing document about how students might use AI in the classroom (if allowed) and one of the recs is: use AI to make an outline of your reading! But ISN'T MAKING THE OUTLINE how one actually learns?
December 12, 2024 at 4:55 PM
This gets to the heart of a big problem with AI in education. Calculators and other tools outsourced the lower-level tasks to a machine. LLMs tempt students to outsource the higher-level tasks as well.
Reposted by Chris Poulton
Great to catch up with friends and colleagues at WOMBAT 5 in Brazil!
February 9, 2024 at 10:29 AM
Great to catch up with friends and colleagues at WOMBAT 5 in Brazil!
PSA: drinking a couple of beers does not improve the experience of watching Rebel Moon.
December 23, 2023 at 12:14 PM
PSA: drinking a couple of beers does not improve the experience of watching Rebel Moon.
Voted this morning, but there was no democracy sausage! This also should be constitutionally mandated.
October 13, 2023 at 10:25 PM
Voted this morning, but there was no democracy sausage! This also should be constitutionally mandated.
My german wife asked me to hide the Nutella from her, so I hid it where no German would ever find it.
October 13, 2023 at 9:44 AM
My german wife asked me to hide the Nutella from her, so I hid it where no German would ever find it.