Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Jamie Zvirzdin @jamiezvirzdin.com · 22d

I'm reading The Complete Sherlock Holmes to my son at night. Sherlock says in "A Scandal in Bohemia" (p. 187),

"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."

Wise words.
🧪⚛️🔭

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Jamie Zvirzdin @jamiezvirzdin.com · 24d

The world can be grim. What sustains us? Meaningful work and kind interactions sustain me, along with good memories. Teaching my son to read is one of these. (We loved these foam letters someone gave us!)

His determination still fuels me.
#parenting #love #education
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNiS...

Happy Scrub Five, Six, Seven

YouTube video by Max Facts: The Universe Explained

www.youtube.com

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Reposted by Jamie Zvirzdin

STRUCTURES Cluster of Excellence Heidelberg @structures-hd.bsky.social · Aug 28

We invite you to learn about the link between topology and space engineering when it comes to solving the three-body problem!

Find out in our latest blog post by Arthur Limoge: structures.uni-heidelberg.de/blog/posts/2...

#threebodyproblem #math #spaceexploration #topology

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Jamie Zvirzdin @jamiezvirzdin.com · Aug 27

Having been a Latin tutor in college (which was wildly lucrative!), I can say that high Latin was not so very high. It was an evolution of what came before it. We inevitably evolve and ebb and flow, so the best thing we can learn to do is swim, build boats, get snorkels... i.e., make the best of it.

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Jamie Zvirzdin @jamiezvirzdin.com · Aug 27

A little cranky😜but I understand. I don't personally need AI to write for me—I'm a science editor/writer. But many people in the sciences, esp. international folks, haven't had that privilege. In the slides, you'll see I still advocate for the development of our own neural networks, our brains.

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Jamie Zvirzdin @jamiezvirzdin.com · Aug 26

I am citable! Check it out:

Zvirzdin, J. (2025, January 27). Psst . . . Your AI Is Showing: How to Put Your Own Voice in Scientific Papers. Workshop on Machine Learning for Analysis of High-Energy Cosmic Particles, University of Delaware. doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

#highenergyastro #ai ⚛️🧪

Psst . . . Your AI Is Showing: How to Put Your Own Voice in Scientific Papers

AI tools shape writing style in ways that dull clarity, variety, rhythm, and voice. Editors, publishers, grant-givers, and professors are familiar with—and tired of—the linguistic tics of the AI voice...

doi.org

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Jamie Zvirzdin @jamiezvirzdin.com · Aug 26

🧪⚛️🔭 Give back, nominate someone who helped you.

wiley.com @wiley.com · Aug 25

Nominations are open for the 2025 #WileyResearchHeroes Prize!

Know researchers making a difference through open science, inclusion, or innovation?

🧡 Celebrate the heroes of research.

Nominate them now:
👉 ow.ly/PF9e50WLx0e

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Jamie Zvirzdin @jamiezvirzdin.com · Aug 20

Props to @kurzgesagt.org for another fantastic and supremely important science video, this time on the benefits and costs of alcohol. Take a moment to watch it, please.

Check yourself before you wreck yourself. Or others.
🧪

youtu.be/aOwmt39L2IQ?...

Alcohol is AMAZING

YouTube video by Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell

youtu.be

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Jamie Zvirzdin @jamiezvirzdin.com · Aug 20

We just published our second paper on this topic! Our #TelescopeArray detectors help us understand energy mechanisms behind both cosmic rays 🌠and lightning.🌩️ Support your local scientists and the National Science Foundation! 💞💸

agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

#highenergyastro 🧪⚛️

Time‐Resolved Leader Spectra of Downward Terrestrial Gamma‐Ray Flashes Observed at the Telescope Array Surface Detector

Time-resolved leader spectra associated with two downward Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes (TGFs)–a low peak current and a high peak current event–are presented The high-peak-current event exhibits ...

agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Jamie Zvirzdin @jamiezvirzdin.com · Jul 28

My colleague Jeremy Smith put this video together. The camera appears blue at the start of the night shift, when it's hot, then cools down to black through the night. We're in Milliard County but can see the fire happening in Sevier County. #Utah
youtu.be/3Ckt-iul87U

Black Rock SkyCam and the Monroe Canyon Wildfire

YouTube video by Jamie Zvirzdin

youtu.be

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Jamie Zvirzdin @jamiezvirzdin.com · Jul 28

Fantastic article by @rhettallain.bsky.social. I grow tired of physics problems that do not model real life. It only leads to physicists who do not know how to model real life. We need more of this, a careful examination of assumptions.⚛️

Rhett Allain @rhettallain.bsky.social · Jul 26

#python #physics - how do you model the motion of a mass on a spring when the spring is not actually massless? #iteachphysics

rjallain.medium.com/physics-lab-...

Physics Lab: Assumptions Can Be Wrong. How Do You Model an Oscillating Mass on a Heavy Spring?

It’s a classic introductory physics lab — in fact, it’s one of my favorites. Students can take a simple spring and stretch it by hanging…

rjallain.medium.com

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Jamie Zvirzdin @jamiezvirzdin.com · Jul 28

Update on the Monroe Canyon Fire: app.watchduty.org/i/55641

Seeing this map of the Western U.S. makes me want to join a fire department. If you are able to, volunteer in some way! Rather than getting fired up at your neighbor on Facebook, we can put out literal fires in an increasingly hot world.🧪

Watch Duty - Wildfire Maps & Alerts

Real-time information about wildfire and firefighting efforts nearby

app.watchduty.org

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Jamie Zvirzdin @jamiezvirzdin.com · Jul 26

I do! I am honored to do it. But our NSF funding soon ends. 😞 The ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays we are looking for have more energy than anything CERN or anyone else has ever produced. We still don't know with any statistical certainty where they come from or how they are produced.

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Jamie Zvirzdin @jamiezvirzdin.com · Jul 26

www.ksl.com/article/5134...

'Avoid the area': Wildfire breaks out on Monroe Mountain in Sevier County

Evacuations are underway as a human-caused wildfire broke out near Monroe in Sevier County on Sunday afternoon.

www.ksl.com

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Jamie Zvirzdin @jamiezvirzdin.com · Jul 26

I remotely operate sensitive cosmic-ray telescopes in the West Desert of Utah. Wild that we can pick up the light from this wildfire. Be safe, Sevier County!

Select Band="Fire Temperature RGB"
www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/goes/wfo_ban...

#Utah #UofU #TelescopeArray #highenergyastro 🧪

Satellite image of fire in Sevier County, Utah.

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Jamie Zvirzdin @jamiezvirzdin.com · Jul 23

Word to the wise, this happened yesterday. I'm in Europe and move frequently for my husband's job. I value staying in touch with friends across the globe. But to be locked out of both Facebook and Instagram with NO warning made me realize I need to write down names/other contact info ASAP.

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Jamie Zvirzdin @jamiezvirzdin.com · Jul 22

Hey, thanks! It is no small gift to read through anything these days.

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Jamie Zvirzdin @jamiezvirzdin.com · Jul 22

Scientists can regain public trust by a) being honest in their work and b) not being so proudly inaccessible in their writing. The best physics writing uses different kinds of stories, and I also tell my own.

aeon.co/essays/to-un...
@aeon.co #scicomm #writing #editing #publishing #highenergyastro ⚛️

To understand physics, we need to tell – and hear – stories | Aeon Essays

Don’t be intimidated by physics: it is made of stories and metaphors. Learn these and the field will open up to you

aeon.co

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Jamie Zvirzdin @jamiezvirzdin.com · Jul 10

If you research the physics ⚛️ of extreme objects/particles/environments or high/ultrahigh-energy emissions from space, sign up to post to our #Bluesky #highenergyastro feed.

I moderate this feed as part of the most excellent Astrosky Ecosystem.🔭
Join us!🧪
astrosky.eco/feeds/highen...
@emily.space

astrosky.eco

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Reposted by Jamie Zvirzdin

Nature Physics @natphys.nature.com · Jul 10

Our friends at @natcomms.nature.com are hiring an editor for quantum physics and technology. Can be based in China, the US, Spain, or Italy.

Full details here: www.nature.com/naturecareer...

#Careers #EditorialJobs #Quantum #Physics

Associate or Senior Editor (Quantum Physics/Technology), Nature Communications - Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing, New York, Jersey City, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Milan, Madrid (Hybri job with Springer ...

Title: Associate or Senior Editor (Quantum Physics and Quantum Technologies), Nature Communications Location: Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing, New York...

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Jamie Zvirzdin

Huei, PhD 🌟 @starlights.bsky.social · May 8

!!! new on work led by U.C. Berkeley postdoc, Yuhan Yao 🦖

incl. comments from @gymleadererica.bsky.social et al.

"Like a scene out of a sci-fi movie, astronomers using NASA telescopes have found 'Space Jaws.'"

🧪🔭☄️ #womeninSTEM #highenergyastro

science.nasa.gov/missions/hub...

NASA's Hubble Pinpoints Roaming Massive Black Hole - NASA Science

A sneaky black hole betrayed its presence to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in a newly identified tidal disruption event.

science.nasa.gov

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Jamie Zvirzdin @jamiezvirzdin.com · Jun 24

Hey, the PDF of my 3-hour workshop at the U. of Delaware has over 100 downloads now! Not bad!
zenodo.org/records/1511...

If you teach science, give your students the time and opportunity to find their own #writing voices.

Textbook I wrote for my #JHU students:
www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/...
🧪⚛️🔭

Psst . . . Your AI Is Showing: How to Put Your Own Voice in Scientific Papers

AI tools shape writing style in ways that dull clarity, variety, rhythm, and voice. Editors, publishers, grant-givers, and professors are familiar with—and tired of—the linguistic tics of the AI voice...

zenodo.org

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Jamie Zvirzdin @jamiezvirzdin.com · Jun 22

I think Intro to Cosmology has a GREAT implied soundtrack, most likely something like Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song or something else from the Thor: Ragnarok soundtrack 😂. We just finished Ch. 5. Any wise words I can tell my class?

a man with a beard is sitting in a chair in front of a colorful background and looking at the camera .

Alt: Thor is going through a Willy Wonka-like rainbow tunnel after being captured.

media.tenor.com

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Jamie Zvirzdin @jamiezvirzdin.com · Jun 21

And here are hundreds of more solutions to the 3-Body Problem!

M. Šuvakov and V. Dmitrašinović, Three Classes of Newtonian Three-Body Planar Periodic Orbits, Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 114301 (2013). arxiv.org/abs/1303.0181

three-body.ipb.ac.rs

Three Classes of Newtonian Three-Body Planar Periodic Orbits

We present the results of a numerical search for periodic orbits of three equal masses moving in a plane under the influence of Newtonian gravity, with zero angular momentum. A topological method is u...

arxiv.org

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Jamie Zvirzdin @jamiezvirzdin.com · Jun 21

And here is one of the solutions to the 3-Body Problem. There are hundreds! It is a good reminder that we often focus too much on a problem and not enough on the solutions.

This is Christopher Moore's original (nontrivial) solution from 1993:
youtu.be/EQ5K6KTVaQc

⚛️🧪 #highenergyastro

JZ 3-Body Solution Short Animation 06-21-25

YouTube video by Jamie Zvirzdin

youtu.be

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