John Dudley
@johnmdudley.bsky.social
Physicist in France originally from New Zealand. Research in nonlinearity, optics, extremes and lots else. Posts on academia, science & history, outreach. In English et en français @johnmdudley on Twitter Web: http://members.femto-st.fr/john-dudley
Those outside the field really don't pay enough attention to what goes on in condensed matter. Indeed, even the excellent DPG Quantum History Wall didn't include yesterday's Nobel Prize winning work on tunnelling in its list of quantum milestones of the 1980s! www.quantum-history.de
October 8, 2025 at 9:24 AM
Those outside the field really don't pay enough attention to what goes on in condensed matter. Indeed, even the excellent DPG Quantum History Wall didn't include yesterday's Nobel Prize winning work on tunnelling in its list of quantum milestones of the 1980s! www.quantum-history.de
If you love supercontinuum (and who doesn't!) check out our forward-looking Perspective in EPL which is free to read. Thanks @jctravs.bsky.social Thibaut Sylvestre, Alex Heidt, Roy Taylor, Goery Genty iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...
September 9, 2025 at 12:42 PM
If you love supercontinuum (and who doesn't!) check out our forward-looking Perspective in EPL which is free to read. Thanks @jctravs.bsky.social Thibaut Sylvestre, Alex Heidt, Roy Taylor, Goery Genty iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...
Over in the other place, Grok actually gets it right ...
August 8, 2025 at 6:15 AM
Over in the other place, Grok actually gets it right ...
I got a different result !!
August 8, 2025 at 6:11 AM
I got a different result !!
Anyone with a library endowment fund who doesn't know what to do with it? First edition of Opticks for sale!
August 5, 2025 at 3:32 PM
Anyone with a library endowment fund who doesn't know what to do with it? First edition of Opticks for sale!
I just had some fun verifing the 1/r potential drop from a plasma ball. The idea is from @simonpoliakoff.bsky.social
and his video is here: youtube.com/watch?v=crW7... To get close to the ball (5 mm) I used a 10kOhm feedthrough terminator which yields around 25 V peak-peak !
and his video is here: youtube.com/watch?v=crW7... To get close to the ball (5 mm) I used a 10kOhm feedthrough terminator which yields around 25 V peak-peak !
July 28, 2025 at 5:03 PM
I just had some fun verifing the 1/r potential drop from a plasma ball. The idea is from @simonpoliakoff.bsky.social
and his video is here: youtube.com/watch?v=crW7... To get close to the ball (5 mm) I used a 10kOhm feedthrough terminator which yields around 25 V peak-peak !
and his video is here: youtube.com/watch?v=crW7... To get close to the ball (5 mm) I used a 10kOhm feedthrough terminator which yields around 25 V peak-peak !
No comment needed really ...
July 1, 2025 at 4:57 PM
No comment needed really ...
Impact factors certainly do not tell the whole story, but in what is more or less an annual tradition, I have compiled a list for some physics/optics journals. Note that there are truly excellent articles in all of these journals and different journals play very different roles in the community.
June 21, 2025 at 10:35 AM
Impact factors certainly do not tell the whole story, but in what is more or less an annual tradition, I have compiled a list for some physics/optics journals. Note that there are truly excellent articles in all of these journals and different journals play very different roles in the community.
Just learned that the Wii remote triangulates position via IR sources in the bar you place on the TV. Most phone cameras allow you to see the emitters (top) but in fact you don't need them. You can replace the bar by two candles and it works just fine! Am sure most people knew this already ...
June 16, 2025 at 10:28 AM
Just learned that the Wii remote triangulates position via IR sources in the bar you place on the TV. Most phone cameras allow you to see the emitters (top) but in fact you don't need them. You can replace the bar by two candles and it works just fine! Am sure most people knew this already ...
Our library holds a rare copy of the proceedings of the 1911 Solvay Conference on physics, and I enjoyed looking through it (very carefully) today. As well as the amazing discussions and pictures (these are from Perrin) it seems a previous reader had been practicing their French at the same time!
June 13, 2025 at 2:39 PM
Our library holds a rare copy of the proceedings of the 1911 Solvay Conference on physics, and I enjoyed looking through it (very carefully) today. As well as the amazing discussions and pictures (these are from Perrin) it seems a previous reader had been practicing their French at the same time!
Good morning everyone! Just the seasons doing their thing!
June 13, 2025 at 6:39 AM
Good morning everyone! Just the seasons doing their thing!
Lighting up a handheld He-Ne tube in the field of a plasma globe #pintofscience Thanks to Andrei Ermolaev for the photo!
May 20, 2025 at 9:01 PM
Lighting up a handheld He-Ne tube in the field of a plasma globe #pintofscience Thanks to Andrei Ermolaev for the photo!
#PintofScience tonight! Slightly more of a logistical challenge than in a lecture theatre but still it all works out!
May 20, 2025 at 5:14 PM
#PintofScience tonight! Slightly more of a logistical challenge than in a lecture theatre but still it all works out!
Celebrating #LightDay2025 with a general lecture for staff and students on The Nature of Light, and Light in Nature. Thanks to the members of the @optica.org @spie.org student chapter and all the local comms staff who helped with the organisation! @idlofficial.bsky.social
May 16, 2025 at 9:56 AM
Celebrating #LightDay2025 with a general lecture for staff and students on The Nature of Light, and Light in Nature. Thanks to the members of the @optica.org @spie.org student chapter and all the local comms staff who helped with the organisation! @idlofficial.bsky.social
Celebrating #lightday2025 here is a beautiful photo (from Dan Curticapean) of Sainte-Chapelle through a Fisheye View (Paris). The colours arise from nanoplasmonic resonances and you can read more about the physics here: doi.org/10.1063/1.35...
May 16, 2025 at 6:56 AM
Celebrating #lightday2025 here is a beautiful photo (from Dan Curticapean) of Sainte-Chapelle through a Fisheye View (Paris). The colours arise from nanoplasmonic resonances and you can read more about the physics here: doi.org/10.1063/1.35...
So here are the dates: Grimaldi - 1665. Newton's "New Theory about Light & Colours" - 1672. Newton's Opticks - 1704. No feathers anywhere! But in Opticks 2nd Edition 1718, we find a brief paragraph inserted describing colours and fringes from feathers & ribbons (red mark in second image).
May 4, 2025 at 4:04 PM
So here are the dates: Grimaldi - 1665. Newton's "New Theory about Light & Colours" - 1672. Newton's Opticks - 1704. No feathers anywhere! But in Opticks 2nd Edition 1718, we find a brief paragraph inserted describing colours and fringes from feathers & ribbons (red mark in second image).
After Newton's 1672 letter on prisms, in 1673 James Gregory wrote to John Collins asking him to tell Newton that you could also see colours looking through a feather! This quick experiment does not show exactly the same thing so I need to hunt for more feathers! Thanks to @astchalyan.bsky.social !
May 3, 2025 at 9:08 AM
After Newton's 1672 letter on prisms, in 1673 James Gregory wrote to John Collins asking him to tell Newton that you could also see colours looking through a feather! This quick experiment does not show exactly the same thing so I need to hunt for more feathers! Thanks to @astchalyan.bsky.social !
ANZAC Day post. My father was wounded at Gazala (Libya) in 1941 and spend time in a battlefield hospital recovering. Thanks to the amazing NZ PapersPast we found a letter he wrote home at the time. paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/O... Below an extract & photo taken when on leave recovering.
April 25, 2025 at 4:54 AM
ANZAC Day post. My father was wounded at Gazala (Libya) in 1941 and spend time in a battlefield hospital recovering. Thanks to the amazing NZ PapersPast we found a letter he wrote home at the time. paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/O... Below an extract & photo taken when on leave recovering.
The pleasure was all mine! And I look forward to more conversations about and hopefully with this gentleman!
April 24, 2025 at 8:25 PM
The pleasure was all mine! And I look forward to more conversations about and hopefully with this gentleman!
This is a fantastic read! A workflow based on tickets and websites may be more efficient for some, but it's overall dehumanising the workplace, and my own experience is very clear that it's decreasing efficiency! It's a kind of "we have to do it" idealogy based on no real evidence. Any comments?
April 24, 2025 at 5:08 PM
This is a fantastic read! A workflow based on tickets and websites may be more efficient for some, but it's overall dehumanising the workplace, and my own experience is very clear that it's decreasing efficiency! It's a kind of "we have to do it" idealogy based on no real evidence. Any comments?
Just back from a fantastic trip to the B-PHOT Student Chapter at @vubrussel.bsky.social, #IDL2025 Light Night & the @carlahub.bsky.social conference. Incredible enthusiasm and energy! Thanks to @astchalyan.bsky.social , @tatev.bsky.social & all Chapter members! What am I measuring in the photo?
April 24, 2025 at 4:18 PM
Just back from a fantastic trip to the B-PHOT Student Chapter at @vubrussel.bsky.social, #IDL2025 Light Night & the @carlahub.bsky.social conference. Incredible enthusiasm and energy! Thanks to @astchalyan.bsky.social , @tatev.bsky.social & all Chapter members! What am I measuring in the photo?
Okay what's all this about...
April 24, 2025 at 2:22 PM
Okay what's all this about...
Here's one of the best bits from Backroom Boys, describing how saving 4 Bytes (yes Bytes!) in Elite revolutionized the game by creating a moral dilemma. Should I be a pirate ? Those guys were geniuses!
April 14, 2025 at 12:44 PM
Here's one of the best bits from Backroom Boys, describing how saving 4 Bytes (yes Bytes!) in Elite revolutionized the game by creating a moral dilemma. Should I be a pirate ? Those guys were geniuses!
Live from Besançon!! Solar eclipse begins!!
March 29, 2025 at 10:18 AM
Live from Besançon!! Solar eclipse begins!!