Pedro Fernandes
LightNews LightNews
pedrogsfernandes.com
Pedro Fernandes
@pedrogsfernandes.com
190 followers 120 following 1 posts
Postdoc @ University of Heidelberg working on gravity and black holes 🤘🏻

🌐 https://pedrogsfernandes.com
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Pedro Fernandes
astrokatie.com
Today I was asked in an interview about folks who use the weirdness of ✨quantum✨ to hawk pseudoscience junk. I think that kind of grift proliferates because of a big misunderstanding a lot of folks have about quantum mechanics, which is not really their fault!
🧵
January 6, 2025 at 3:58 PM
Reposted by Pedro Fernandes
mcnees.bsky.social
The Reverend John Michell had his friend Henry Cavendish present a paper to the Royal Society #OTD in 1783, that included the first prediction of what (given the understanding of gravity at the time) you might call a Black Hole.
(1/n) 🧪 🔭 ⚛️
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1...
The top of the first page, as published in the proceedings of the Royal Society, contains an explanatory note that reads: VII. On the Means of discovering the Distance, Magnitude, Sec. of the Fixed Stars, in consequence of the Diminution of the Velocity of their Light, in case such a Diminution fould be found to take place in any of them, and such other Data should be procured from Observations, as would be farther necessary for that Purpose. By the Rev. John Michell, B. D. F. R. S. In a Letter to Henry Cavendish, Ef. F.R. S. and A. S. Read November 27, 1783. The passage reads: 16. Hence, according to article 10, if the semi-diameter of a sphere of the same density with the sun were to exceed that of the sun in the proportion of 500 to 1, a body falling from an infinite height towards it, would have acquired at its surface a greater velocity than that of light, and consequently, supposing light to be attracted by the same force in proportion to its vis inertia, with other bodies, all light emitted from such a body would be made to return towards it, by its own proper gravity.
November 27, 2024 at 6:49 PM
Reposted by Pedro Fernandes
cplberry.bsky.social
To accompany all those BlueSky science/academia #starterpacks, let’s share introductions to the literature of our fields

Gravitational-wave papers (created with observablehq.com/@guillaume-l...)

When the intro starts "We have opened a new window" you know you can skip a couple of paragraphs
Most scientific papers in xkcd comic style, with titles: We did. We detected gravitational waves! 2000 people worked for 3 years on this and you're just going to read Section D5 and look at plots We calculated these pN equations so you don't have to Binaries stars: Even more complicated We know you're tired of citing Abbott et al. Here's an Abac et al This will be great if we build it in 2050 We thought of a new way Einstein could be wrong. The data say he isn't. Yet Upper limits are neat: We looked really hard and still haven't found anything We hid the quantum uncertainty down the back of the sofa and improved detector performance Something exploded and we all saw it! Isn't multi messenger astronomy fun (paper 1 of 49) Some thoughts on what even is a black hole really? Glitches: caused by dark magic?
November 19, 2024 at 10:16 AM