Dan Russell (Dr. Batman)
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drussellpsu.bsky.social
Dan Russell (Dr. Batman)
@drussellpsu.bsky.social
Teaching Professor of Acoustics. Penn State. Acoustics Education. Research on vibrio-acoustics of sports equipment (baseball/softball bats, gold clubs & balls, tennis rackets, pickleball paddles, hockey sticks). Acoustics & vibration animations & demos.
Holy plagiarism, Batman!
I just found a 2020 book chapter that plagiarized my data originally submitted (paper copies only!) to the American Journal of Physics in 1998 before the editor asked me to rotate the plots for publication.

How did these authors obtain my original unpublished plots?
November 14, 2025 at 10:08 PM
I've always been a huge fan of the extensive footnotes in Allan Pierce's "ACOUSTICS" textbook . . . but I've found a new favorite: "Wind Waves" by Blair Kinsman. His writing style is delightfully refreshing for a textbook, but this full-page footnote on the Bernoulli family history is amazing!
September 4, 2025 at 9:11 PM
Time for another fun movie trailer to entice interest in the first-year graduate course in Acoustics that I'll be teaching for the Graduate Program in Acoustics at Penn State in the Fall 2025 semester. Simultaneously offered online through our distance education program!
youtu.be/fKPA5HL76Ps?...
ACS 502 Sound Waves In Fluids Fall 2025 at Penn State
YouTube video by Dan Russell
youtu.be
July 31, 2025 at 5:53 PM
30 years of making animations . . . I'm updating HTML code for my Acoustics and Vibration Animations website (for WCAG accessibility and HTML5) and found an archive of my original website from 25 years ago with a photo of me in my office at Kettering University.
www.acs.psu.edu/drussell/demos.html
July 29, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Brand new video demonstration . . . Standing Waves inside a Cylindrical Cavity. Finding nodal surfaces for acoustic standing wave mode shapes inside a cylinder with "rigid" walls -- a plastic CD container. #iteachphysics #acoustics

youtu.be/-4IqtGhWe2U?... via @YouTube
youtu.be
April 23, 2025 at 9:17 PM
Really good preliminary summary of what we know so far about torpedo bats by my fellow bat researcher @pobguy.bsky.social
blogs.fangraphs.com/the-physics-...
The Physics of the Torpedo Bat
What can physics tell us about the torpedo bats?
blogs.fangraphs.com
April 9, 2025 at 2:45 AM
My favorite way to spend a quiet Sunday evening.
March 10, 2025 at 3:50 AM
What a stupid waste of money. @PSUEngineering is replacing many dozens of doors in our 6 month old new building because the wood veneer on some doors has some unsightly wood knots. Here’s my office door (with ugly knots) that is slated for replacement. What a stupid waste of $$.
December 17, 2024 at 3:53 PM
So during a 5-minute "lightning round" #ASA187 session this morning, I complained that someone else's 5-minute talk lasted 12 minutes.

Well, this afternoon I contributed to a 5-minute lightning round session.

Any guesses as to how long my own "5-minute" talk lasted? 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♀️🤦
November 21, 2024 at 9:48 PM
Listening to the keynote address for #ASA187 . . . humorous inverse correlation => larger larynx (deeper + louder vocal production) in howler monkeys correlates to smaller testicles. Bigger balls means less powerful and higher sounding howl.
November 20, 2024 at 8:40 PM
Audio/Video demonstration of an "acoustic thermometer" => how the speed of sound changes with temperature — observed as a change in the resonance frequency of a short closed-open pipe.
youtu.be/9Pmsn_JZU-4

#iTeachPhysics
Speed of Sound Depends on Air Temperature
YouTube video by Dan Russell
youtu.be
November 20, 2024 at 3:19 PM
During the current migration to 🦋 I have gained lots of new #iTeachPhysics follows including many people I don’t recognize from X. I currently teach grad level acoustics but my waves and vibration animations website is useful for HS and undergrads students:
www.acs.psu.edu/drussell/demos.html
Dan Russell's Acoustics and Vibration Animations
www.acs.psu.edu
November 20, 2024 at 5:27 AM
just heard a cool presentation at the ASA 187 Virtual Meeting . . . taking each element in the periodic table and creating an audible sound based on the atomic emission/absorption spectrum for that element.
academics.skidmore.edu/blogs/jlinz/
Jill Linz
academics.skidmore.edu
November 19, 2024 at 8:58 PM
1/2 Next year my graduate program is moving into a new building (currently under construction). My office will be smaller and I've been told I have to downsize from 4 completely full bookshelves to 2 (yikes!). So, I made a first pass thru my office library to identify books . . .
August 2, 2023 at 3:37 PM
Went through some of my parents’ photos after dad died last year and found this autographed photo of Tenzig Norgay (2nd person to the top of Mt Everest in 1953 behind Sir Edmund Hillary). I got this photo as a kid in Hong Kong in 1976 but thought it was lost years ago.

Wonder if it’s worth any $$?
July 29, 2023 at 11:39 PM