Dan Garisto
@dangaristo.bsky.social
science journalist | good physics, bad physics, and sometimes ugly physics
Signal: dgaristo.72
Email: digaristo@gmail.com
Signal: dgaristo.72
Email: digaristo@gmail.com
The fact that people don't know who Bardeen is but Einstein is everywhere does not mean special & general relativity are less important, so I don't follow this line of argument.
If you want to say the transistor is more important, say so.
If you want to say the transistor is more important, say so.
November 11, 2025 at 3:54 AM
The fact that people don't know who Bardeen is but Einstein is everywhere does not mean special & general relativity are less important, so I don't follow this line of argument.
If you want to say the transistor is more important, say so.
If you want to say the transistor is more important, say so.
I mean I think one should always place a substantial amount of salt on a biographer's notion of their subject's importance (it is always interrelated). But I think @nccomfort.bsky.social and @matthewcobb.bsky.social's careful account of the discovery (and who did what) is a model history.
What Rosalind Franklin truly contributed to the discovery of DNA’s structure
Franklin was no victim in how the DNA double helix was solved. An overlooked letter and an unpublished news article, both written in 1953, reveal that she was an equal player.
www.nature.com
November 11, 2025 at 3:47 AM
I mean I think one should always place a substantial amount of salt on a biographer's notion of their subject's importance (it is always interrelated). But I think @nccomfort.bsky.social and @matthewcobb.bsky.social's careful account of the discovery (and who did what) is a model history.
n.b. Perhaps this is a journalist's insensitivity, but I think vulgar self-promotion is common to both a lot of great discoveries and poor ones. That really does not rank to me among Watson's sins.
November 11, 2025 at 3:44 AM
n.b. Perhaps this is a journalist's insensitivity, but I think vulgar self-promotion is common to both a lot of great discoveries and poor ones. That really does not rank to me among Watson's sins.
I would be very curious to hear a case for Sanger's discoveries—on the merits.
I don't think we should expect or want the public to expect that scientific merit is tied to moral rectitude. That seems like a way to distort history and continue dangerously uncritical lionization.
I don't think we should expect or want the public to expect that scientific merit is tied to moral rectitude. That seems like a way to distort history and continue dangerously uncritical lionization.
November 11, 2025 at 3:43 AM
I would be very curious to hear a case for Sanger's discoveries—on the merits.
I don't think we should expect or want the public to expect that scientific merit is tied to moral rectitude. That seems like a way to distort history and continue dangerously uncritical lionization.
I don't think we should expect or want the public to expect that scientific merit is tied to moral rectitude. That seems like a way to distort history and continue dangerously uncritical lionization.
A little stronger: I think asserting that the discovery of structure of DNA was less momentous _because of Watson's moral failings_ does a disservice to science, to history, and to the immediate community that made the discovery possible: Franklin, Gosling, Wilkins, Crick, Bragg, Signer, et al.
November 11, 2025 at 3:37 AM
A little stronger: I think asserting that the discovery of structure of DNA was less momentous _because of Watson's moral failings_ does a disservice to science, to history, and to the immediate community that made the discovery possible: Franklin, Gosling, Wilkins, Crick, Bragg, Signer, et al.
I'm sympathetic to the impulse, but don't really think this is a useful corrective strategy.
We should tell the truth about scientific discoveries, which is that they are never done by one good or bad person.
We should tell the truth about scientific discoveries, which is that they are never done by one good or bad person.
November 11, 2025 at 3:31 AM
I'm sympathetic to the impulse, but don't really think this is a useful corrective strategy.
We should tell the truth about scientific discoveries, which is that they are never done by one good or bad person.
We should tell the truth about scientific discoveries, which is that they are never done by one good or bad person.
Reposted by Dan Garisto
The only exception to that is with respect to reductions in force (RIFs). The bill appears to both roll back RIFs announced during the shutdown and prevent any further RIFs between now and Jan 30.
November 10, 2025 at 12:00 AM
The only exception to that is with respect to reductions in force (RIFs). The bill appears to both roll back RIFs announced during the shutdown and prevent any further RIFs between now and Jan 30.
Some notable exceptions, hah.
November 9, 2025 at 2:35 AM
Some notable exceptions, hah.
Yes, the more precise way of putting it is that these are the first real-valued quantum theories that actually produce equivalent results. Stueckelberg's does not have a proper combination rule.
November 8, 2025 at 7:51 PM
Yes, the more precise way of putting it is that these are the first real-valued quantum theories that actually produce equivalent results. Stueckelberg's does not have a proper combination rule.
I hinted at some possible answers near the end of the story, but I think the jury is very much still out.
Anyways, if you're curious, here's the story:
Anyways, if you're curious, here's the story:
Physicists Take the Imaginary Numbers Out of Quantum Mechanics | Quanta Magazine
Quantum mechanics has at last been formulated exclusively with real numbers, bringing a mathematical puzzle at the heart of the theory into a new era of inquiry.
www.quantamagazine.org
November 8, 2025 at 12:04 PM
I hinted at some possible answers near the end of the story, but I think the jury is very much still out.
Anyways, if you're curious, here's the story:
Anyways, if you're curious, here's the story:
For me, the most interesting question is not whether QM explicitly needs one type of numbers or another, but why. What properties of QM make it more natural to be described with complex numbers? What essential thing still remains of the complex algebraic structure even when you remove 𝓲?
November 8, 2025 at 12:04 PM
For me, the most interesting question is not whether QM explicitly needs one type of numbers or another, but why. What properties of QM make it more natural to be described with complex numbers? What essential thing still remains of the complex algebraic structure even when you remove 𝓲?
For example, _why_ is there a different limit for real quantum theory w/Kronecker product (7.66) compared to complex quantum theory (8.49)?
Nontrivial is a bit of an understatement. My best gloss on this paper is that the difference results from RQT w/ Kronecker having a non-unitary symmetry.
Nontrivial is a bit of an understatement. My best gloss on this paper is that the difference results from RQT w/ Kronecker having a non-unitary symmetry.
On whether quantum theory needs complex numbers: the foil theories perspective
Recent work by Renou et al. (2021) has led to some controversy concerning the question of whether quantum theory requires complex numbers for its formulation. We promote the view that the main result ...
arxiv.org
November 8, 2025 at 12:04 PM
For example, _why_ is there a different limit for real quantum theory w/Kronecker product (7.66) compared to complex quantum theory (8.49)?
Nontrivial is a bit of an understatement. My best gloss on this paper is that the difference results from RQT w/ Kronecker having a non-unitary symmetry.
Nontrivial is a bit of an understatement. My best gloss on this paper is that the difference results from RQT w/ Kronecker having a non-unitary symmetry.
I would submit that these diametrically opposed responses suggest maybe it's not so trivial after all, and there are some tricky and (forgive the pun) complex things going on under the hood of the mathematical representation.
November 8, 2025 at 12:04 PM
I would submit that these diametrically opposed responses suggest maybe it's not so trivial after all, and there are some tricky and (forgive the pun) complex things going on under the hood of the mathematical representation.
Half of the comments are 'this is completely trivial, complex numbers are easily represented by real numbers,' and the other half are 'this is completely trivial, you can't get rid of complex numbers'.
(Lots of fun comments on Twitter and reddit too, many of them too impolite to share here.)
(Lots of fun comments on Twitter and reddit too, many of them too impolite to share here.)
November 8, 2025 at 12:04 PM
Half of the comments are 'this is completely trivial, complex numbers are easily represented by real numbers,' and the other half are 'this is completely trivial, you can't get rid of complex numbers'.
(Lots of fun comments on Twitter and reddit too, many of them too impolite to share here.)
(Lots of fun comments on Twitter and reddit too, many of them too impolite to share here.)
Huh. I've read this paper multiple times and never noticed.
November 7, 2025 at 10:23 PM
Huh. I've read this paper multiple times and never noticed.
Happens more with soft money. Harvard's public health school suffered a lot more than the university proper, for example. One person I spoke with lost 7/9 postdocs.
November 7, 2025 at 10:20 PM
Happens more with soft money. Harvard's public health school suffered a lot more than the university proper, for example. One person I spoke with lost 7/9 postdocs.
This is a bit closer to something I think is more feasible: trying to train ML to have a chemist's physical intuition for compounds (learning principles, not just trying to make the Tc number go up).
Materials Expert-Artificial Intelligence for materials discovery - Communications Materials
Material databases offer avenues for identifying predictive descriptors, yet often rely on data that diverges from experimental results. Here, machine learning was used to capture expert intuition int...
www.nature.com
November 7, 2025 at 7:32 PM
This is a bit closer to something I think is more feasible: trying to train ML to have a chemist's physical intuition for compounds (learning principles, not just trying to make the Tc number go up).
For a more detailed look, I also strongly recommend Chris Glass' blog:
Hemorrhaging Beneath Headlines of 1% Growth
OPT did not mask massive international enrollment declines, but a K-shaped enrollment cycle might be.
distributedprogress.substack.com
November 7, 2025 at 6:55 PM
For a more detailed look, I also strongly recommend Chris Glass' blog:
For me, perhaps because it centers on abstruse questions like—'is a specific kind of tensor product inherently tied to quantum reality?'—this was a new, fun, and perhaps even productive argument to cover about quantum mechanics.
November 7, 2025 at 6:51 PM
For me, perhaps because it centers on abstruse questions like—'is a specific kind of tensor product inherently tied to quantum reality?'—this was a new, fun, and perhaps even productive argument to cover about quantum mechanics.
A lot of debates about quantum mechanics have, understandably, focused on interpretations: what's actually happening at a physical level? Many people are very mad at each other about this and the debate remains interminable. See @lizziegibney.bsky.social's feature: www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Physicists disagree wildly on what quantum mechanics says about reality, Nature survey shows
First major attempt to chart researchers’ views finds interpretations in conflict.
www.nature.com
November 7, 2025 at 6:51 PM
A lot of debates about quantum mechanics have, understandably, focused on interpretations: what's actually happening at a physical level? Many people are very mad at each other about this and the debate remains interminable. See @lizziegibney.bsky.social's feature: www.nature.com/articles/d41...