Greg Egan
@gregegansf.bsky.social
SF writer / computer programmer
Latest novel: MORPHOTROPHIC
Latest collection: SLEEP AND THE SOUL
Web site: http://gregegan.net
Also: @[email protected]
Latest novel: MORPHOTROPHIC
Latest collection: SLEEP AND THE SOUL
Web site: http://gregegan.net
Also: @[email protected]
Pinned
Greg Egan
@gregegansf.bsky.social
· Nov 25
My new novel MORPHOTROPHIC is available now!
You can read the first two chapters here:
www.gregegan.net/MORPHOTROPHI...
You can read the first two chapters here:
www.gregegan.net/MORPHOTROPHI...
St Peter: You studied Newtonian gravity, right?
Me: Umm, a bit.
SP: Explain to me, like I’m 5, why the ratio of polar gravity to equatorial for a uniform oblate spheroid is approximately 1 + 1/5 the ellipticity of the meridians.
Me: You let Isaac set the questions, didn’t you?
Me: Umm, a bit.
SP: Explain to me, like I’m 5, why the ratio of polar gravity to equatorial for a uniform oblate spheroid is approximately 1 + 1/5 the ellipticity of the meridians.
Me: You let Isaac set the questions, didn’t you?
November 25, 2025 at 1:11 PM
St Peter: You studied Newtonian gravity, right?
Me: Umm, a bit.
SP: Explain to me, like I’m 5, why the ratio of polar gravity to equatorial for a uniform oblate spheroid is approximately 1 + 1/5 the ellipticity of the meridians.
Me: You let Isaac set the questions, didn’t you?
Me: Umm, a bit.
SP: Explain to me, like I’m 5, why the ratio of polar gravity to equatorial for a uniform oblate spheroid is approximately 1 + 1/5 the ellipticity of the meridians.
Me: You let Isaac set the questions, didn’t you?
Reposted by Greg Egan
Led me to a very informative wikipedia entry en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opaque_...
November 25, 2025 at 8:20 AM
Led me to a very informative wikipedia entry en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opaque_...
One mouse click away from butt-dialling the Big Bang.
November 24, 2025 at 7:34 AM
One mouse click away from butt-dialling the Big Bang.
Reposted by Greg Egan
![[Scene is a kitchen - a middle aged woman called JANET is boiling peas at the stove. A younger more colourfully dressed woman named LIZ approached her.]
JANET:
Ugh...
LIZ:
What's up?
JANET:
I am so bored of cooking peas!
LIZ:
Have you tried...
AI peas?
JANET:
AI peas?
LIZ:
They're peas with AI!
[Liz holds up to us a packet of peas labelled: Pea-i AI - Peas with AI].
LIZ:
Al-powered peas harness the potential of your peas
JANET:
What
LIZ [Now a voiceover as we cut to a whizzy technology diagram of peas all connected by meaningless dotted lines]
Why not take your peas to the next level with Al Peas' new Al tools to power your peas?
[Show a techno diagram of a pea with a label reading 'AI' pointing to a random zone in it]
LIZ:
Each pea has Al in a way we haven't quite worked out yet but it's fine
[Show Janet and Liz now in a Matrix-style world of peas]
LIZ:
With Al peas you can supercharge productivity and make AI work for your peas!
JANET:
What
LIZ:
Shut up
LIZ:
Our game-changing Pea-Al gives you the freedom to unlock the potential of the power of the future of your peas workflow
From opening the bag of peas
to boiling the peas
to eating the peas
To spending millions on adding Al to the peas and then having to work out what that even means.
JANET:
Is it really necessary to-
LIZ [Grabbing Janet by the collar]:
THE PEAS HAVE GOT AI, JANET
[Cut to an advert ending screen, with the bag of peas and the slogan:
AI PEAS: Just 'Peas' for god's sake buy the AI peas.
[Ends]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4m3we4apbjayclzcnhwe3pfp/bafkreiayqa37f7kik7l7s7fbtfp2sir5ckb662ry2lylinyjrfa2rkvvka@jpeg)
Reposted by Greg Egan
Journalist challenge: Use “Machine Learning” when you mean machine learning and “LLM” when you mean LLM. Ditch “AI” as a catch-all term, it’s not useful for readers and it helps companies trying to confuse the public by obscuring the roles played by different technologies. 🧪
November 22, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Journalist challenge: Use “Machine Learning” when you mean machine learning and “LLM” when you mean LLM. Ditch “AI” as a catch-all term, it’s not useful for readers and it helps companies trying to confuse the public by obscuring the roles played by different technologies. 🧪
Reposted by Greg Egan
How to turn off Gmail's ability to read your emails to train its bots: www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/20...
Gmail can read your emails and attachments to train its AI, unless you opt out
A new Gmail update may allow Google to use your private messages and attachments for AI training. Here's how to turn it off.
www.malwarebytes.com
November 22, 2025 at 2:03 PM
How to turn off Gmail's ability to read your emails to train its bots: www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/20...
A huge, beautiful library of tessellated materials in biology!
tessellated-materials.mpikg.mpg.de/collection
And an interview in Science with the creators of this library:
www.science.org/content/arti...
tessellated-materials.mpikg.mpg.de/collection
And an interview in Science with the creators of this library:
www.science.org/content/arti...
HU
tessellated-materials.mpikg.mpg.de
November 21, 2025 at 3:59 AM
A huge, beautiful library of tessellated materials in biology!
tessellated-materials.mpikg.mpg.de/collection
And an interview in Science with the creators of this library:
www.science.org/content/arti...
tessellated-materials.mpikg.mpg.de/collection
And an interview in Science with the creators of this library:
www.science.org/content/arti...
Reposted by Greg Egan
A reminder that seven years ago almost to the day, the CIA determined that Mohammed Bin Salman ordered the killing of @washingtonpost.com journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
I hired and worked with Jamal for a year.
www.washingtonpost.com/world/nation...
I hired and worked with Jamal for a year.
www.washingtonpost.com/world/nation...
CIA concludes Saudi crown prince ordered Jamal Khashoggi’s assassination
Audio recordings, intercepted phone calls and other intelligence link Mohammed bin Salman to killing that Saudis say was conducted by rogue elements.
www.washingtonpost.com
November 18, 2025 at 6:05 PM
A reminder that seven years ago almost to the day, the CIA determined that Mohammed Bin Salman ordered the killing of @washingtonpost.com journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
I hired and worked with Jamal for a year.
www.washingtonpost.com/world/nation...
I hired and worked with Jamal for a year.
www.washingtonpost.com/world/nation...
Reposted by Greg Egan
Read more (don't let this gutting of CSIRO and science happen in silence): www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
Shame on your government, @albomp.bsky.social .
Shame on your government, @albomp.bsky.social .
‘Sad day for publicly funded science’: up to 350 more jobs to go at CSIRO
Australia’s national scientific agency announces more research job losses as it looks for budgetary savings
www.theguardian.com
November 18, 2025 at 6:33 AM
Read more (don't let this gutting of CSIRO and science happen in silence): www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
Shame on your government, @albomp.bsky.social .
Shame on your government, @albomp.bsky.social .
Reposted by Greg Egan
In light of the astronomical increases for my health insurance next year, I thought it would be a good time to encourage people to subscribe. (A few hundred should cover it. Sigh.)
clarkesworldmagazine.com/subscribe/
clarkesworldmagazine.com/subscribe/
November 17, 2025 at 4:19 PM
In light of the astronomical increases for my health insurance next year, I thought it would be a good time to encourage people to subscribe. (A few hundred should cover it. Sigh.)
clarkesworldmagazine.com/subscribe/
clarkesworldmagazine.com/subscribe/
Reposted by Greg Egan
❤️ Love this ❤️
@mathforge.org has done what I’ve never been organised enough to do myself, and catalogued every #geometrypuzzle I’ve ever posted on social media. It looks amazing!
@mathforge.org has done what I’ve never been organised enough to do myself, and catalogued every #geometrypuzzle I’ve ever posted on social media. It looks amazing!
November 17, 2025 at 6:33 AM
❤️ Love this ❤️
@mathforge.org has done what I’ve never been organised enough to do myself, and catalogued every #geometrypuzzle I’ve ever posted on social media. It looks amazing!
@mathforge.org has done what I’ve never been organised enough to do myself, and catalogued every #geometrypuzzle I’ve ever posted on social media. It looks amazing!
Google’s “AI overview”, pointlessly appended to their usual weather forecast for my suburb:
“The weather in XXX is currently sunny with a temperature of about 17° C ... ”
The forecast already states the current temperature, but no, it is not “currently sunny” as it’s 10:23 pm.
“The weather in XXX is currently sunny with a temperature of about 17° C ... ”
The forecast already states the current temperature, but no, it is not “currently sunny” as it’s 10:23 pm.
November 15, 2025 at 2:24 PM
Google’s “AI overview”, pointlessly appended to their usual weather forecast for my suburb:
“The weather in XXX is currently sunny with a temperature of about 17° C ... ”
The forecast already states the current temperature, but no, it is not “currently sunny” as it’s 10:23 pm.
“The weather in XXX is currently sunny with a temperature of about 17° C ... ”
The forecast already states the current temperature, but no, it is not “currently sunny” as it’s 10:23 pm.
Reposted by Greg Egan
Oh, they made Virtual Martin from @gregegansf.bsky.social's 2010 novel Don't Make Virtual Martin^w^w^w^wZendegi
November 14, 2025 at 6:03 AM
Oh, they made Virtual Martin from @gregegansf.bsky.social's 2010 novel Don't Make Virtual Martin^w^w^w^wZendegi
Reposted by Greg Egan
#CometInterceptor will be the first mission to visit a comet coming directly from the outer reaches of the Sun's realm, carrying material untouched since the dawn of the Solar System.
Part of #CosmicVision, Comet Interceptor is an ESA-led mission in collaboration with JAXA.
1/ #CM25 🔭
Part of #CosmicVision, Comet Interceptor is an ESA-led mission in collaboration with JAXA.
1/ #CM25 🔭
November 11, 2025 at 1:03 PM
#CometInterceptor will be the first mission to visit a comet coming directly from the outer reaches of the Sun's realm, carrying material untouched since the dawn of the Solar System.
Part of #CosmicVision, Comet Interceptor is an ESA-led mission in collaboration with JAXA.
1/ #CM25 🔭
Part of #CosmicVision, Comet Interceptor is an ESA-led mission in collaboration with JAXA.
1/ #CM25 🔭
Reposted by Greg Egan
There is a lot of fuss today over whether chatbots can replace human participants in social sciences research when the solution is obvious: ask chatbots to simulate the views of social scientists and survey them on attitudes towards chatbots as substitutes for human subjects.
November 10, 2025 at 10:45 PM
There is a lot of fuss today over whether chatbots can replace human participants in social sciences research when the solution is obvious: ask chatbots to simulate the views of social scientists and survey them on attitudes towards chatbots as substitutes for human subjects.
Every parallelogram that you draw around an ellipse whose sides are tangent to the ellipse at their midpoints has the same area for a given ellipse: 4 a b, where a and b are the semi-axes of the ellipse.
November 6, 2025 at 1:44 PM
Every parallelogram that you draw around an ellipse whose sides are tangent to the ellipse at their midpoints has the same area for a given ellipse: 4 a b, where a and b are the semi-axes of the ellipse.
Reposted by Greg Egan
Think Weirder: the Year’s Best Science Fiction Ideas, Volume 1, is now on sale. It’s billed as the year’s “sixteen best concept-driven, near-future ideas about people interacting with technology.”
thinkweirder.com
🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🛸
#thinkweirder #sciencefiction #shortstories
thinkweirder.com
🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🛸
#thinkweirder #sciencefiction #shortstories
Think Weirder: The Year's Best Science Fiction Ideas
The sixteen best concept-driven, near-future science fiction stories of the year. Curated from hundreds of stories published in major magazines. Coming October 2025.
thinkweirder.com
November 2, 2025 at 12:06 AM
Think Weirder: the Year’s Best Science Fiction Ideas, Volume 1, is now on sale. It’s billed as the year’s “sixteen best concept-driven, near-future ideas about people interacting with technology.”
thinkweirder.com
🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🛸
#thinkweirder #sciencefiction #shortstories
thinkweirder.com
🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🛸
#thinkweirder #sciencefiction #shortstories
Reposted by Greg Egan
Astounding stream of stars caught escaping from nearby galaxy
The Vera Rubin Observatory's "First Look" observations weren't meant for science.
And yet, it revealed a surprising new stellar stream, 160,000 light-years long, escaping from a nearby galaxy.
bigthink.com/starts-with-...
#space #astro
The Vera Rubin Observatory's "First Look" observations weren't meant for science.
And yet, it revealed a surprising new stellar stream, 160,000 light-years long, escaping from a nearby galaxy.
bigthink.com/starts-with-...
#space #astro
Astounding stream of stars caught escaping from nearby galaxy
Stellar streams are faint trails of stars that appear to "stream" out of galaxies. A new one, escaping galaxy M61, may point to many others.
bigthink.com
November 4, 2025 at 4:51 PM
Astounding stream of stars caught escaping from nearby galaxy
The Vera Rubin Observatory's "First Look" observations weren't meant for science.
And yet, it revealed a surprising new stellar stream, 160,000 light-years long, escaping from a nearby galaxy.
bigthink.com/starts-with-...
#space #astro
The Vera Rubin Observatory's "First Look" observations weren't meant for science.
And yet, it revealed a surprising new stellar stream, 160,000 light-years long, escaping from a nearby galaxy.
bigthink.com/starts-with-...
#space #astro
Reposted by Greg Egan
My latest — this was a collective effort with colleagues Xiaoying You, @marilenharo.bsky.social, MohanaBasu, Jeff Tollefson, and @celestebiever.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
How to fight climate change without the US: a guide to global action
With the US government absent from the COP30 global climate summit, it will be up to others to avert catastrophe.
www.nature.com
November 4, 2025 at 8:41 AM
My latest — this was a collective effort with colleagues Xiaoying You, @marilenharo.bsky.social, MohanaBasu, Jeff Tollefson, and @celestebiever.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
It’s old news that most screenwriters are clueless about scientists and mathematicians, but you’d hope they'd be a *little* more familiar with what makes a good humanities student.
“Down Cemetery Road”: “She was brilliant! She memorised The Wasteland, including the footnotes!”
“Down Cemetery Road”: “She was brilliant! She memorised The Wasteland, including the footnotes!”
November 4, 2025 at 5:55 AM
It’s old news that most screenwriters are clueless about scientists and mathematicians, but you’d hope they'd be a *little* more familiar with what makes a good humanities student.
“Down Cemetery Road”: “She was brilliant! She memorised The Wasteland, including the footnotes!”
“Down Cemetery Road”: “She was brilliant! She memorised The Wasteland, including the footnotes!”
“It’s normal to have something presented to you and be told that this thing is the future. What’s different, of course, is that in contrast to computers and the internet, AGI doesn’t exist.”
www.technologyreview.com/2025/10/30/1...
www.technologyreview.com/2025/10/30/1...
How AGI became the most consequential conspiracy theory of our time
The idea that machines will be as smart as—or smarter than—humans has hijacked an entire industry. But look closely and you’ll see it’s a myth that persists for many of the same reasons conspiracies d...
www.technologyreview.com
November 3, 2025 at 2:20 PM
“It’s normal to have something presented to you and be told that this thing is the future. What’s different, of course, is that in contrast to computers and the internet, AGI doesn’t exist.”
www.technologyreview.com/2025/10/30/1...
www.technologyreview.com/2025/10/30/1...
It’s nice that an expert on aerosols has won the 2025 Prime Minister's Prize for Science … but the govt still can’t be bothered acting on her expertise.
"The reality is that there are no regulations for indoor air quality," she said.
www.abc.net.au/news/science...
"The reality is that there are no regulations for indoor air quality," she said.
www.abc.net.au/news/science...
World expert in air quality and COVID wins Australia's top science prize
Lidia Morawska, an internationally renowned expert in air quality and its impact on human health, has won Australia's most coveted prize for scientific research.
www.abc.net.au
November 3, 2025 at 12:42 PM
It’s nice that an expert on aerosols has won the 2025 Prime Minister's Prize for Science … but the govt still can’t be bothered acting on her expertise.
"The reality is that there are no regulations for indoor air quality," she said.
www.abc.net.au/news/science...
"The reality is that there are no regulations for indoor air quality," she said.
www.abc.net.au/news/science...
Most people know how to draw an ellipse by pinning two ends of a string to a board and sweeping a pencil around inside the string, keeping it taut.
But what about the 3D equivalent?
Start with an ellipse and a hyperbola in orthogonal planes, with each curve’s vertices being the other’s foci.
But what about the 3D equivalent?
Start with an ellipse and a hyperbola in orthogonal planes, with each curve’s vertices being the other’s foci.
October 31, 2025 at 10:53 AM
Most people know how to draw an ellipse by pinning two ends of a string to a board and sweeping a pencil around inside the string, keeping it taut.
But what about the 3D equivalent?
Start with an ellipse and a hyperbola in orthogonal planes, with each curve’s vertices being the other’s foci.
But what about the 3D equivalent?
Start with an ellipse and a hyperbola in orthogonal planes, with each curve’s vertices being the other’s foci.
Reposted by Greg Egan
Can't overstate how fucked up it is that unraveling what is arguably the greatest achievement in the history of humanity is now a motivating issue of one of the two dominant parties in the U.S.
FL is moving forward w/ plan to end all childhood vaccine mandates. Starting with hepatitis B, chickenpox, and the bacteria causing meningitis and pneumonia. Then next year GOP FL legislature is expected to revisit 1977 law re: whooping cough, measles, polio, rubella, mumps, diphtheria, and tetanus.
October 31, 2025 at 4:13 AM
Can't overstate how fucked up it is that unraveling what is arguably the greatest achievement in the history of humanity is now a motivating issue of one of the two dominant parties in the U.S.
Reposted by Greg Egan
Come and listen to me blabber for a few hours about light scattering!
The first lecturer of #PLASMONICAschool2026 will be @jacopobertolotti.com from University of Exeter (UK). He is an expert of imaging through scattering media 👓 and optical computing 💻 and will teach us the fundamentals of optical wave scattering from single particles and in diffusive media 🥛.
October 30, 2025 at 11:14 AM
Come and listen to me blabber for a few hours about light scattering!