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j-bertolotti.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy
Associated Professor of Physics at the University of Exeter. Scientific visualizations (grouped under the hastag #PhysicsFactlet). He/lui/on. All opinions […] [bridged from https://mathstodon.xyz/@j_bertolotti on the fediverse by https://fed.brid.gy/ ]
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I would expect all my fellow scientists to be able to spot a dishonest chart from 10 miles away, but it is still good to get a quick refresher from time to time. Also a good resource to give to students, who are often very naive on these things. https://flowingdata.com/projects/dishonest-charts/

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

Reason number 10²³ why using Microsoft Office is a bad idea. https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/microsoft-is-testing-a-free-with-ads-version-of-office-140030345.html?src=rss

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

#PhysicsJournalClub Today a paper I contributed to! S. Kendall et al. "Dynamically reconfigurable 2D polarization-agnostic image edge-detection using nonvolatile phase-change metasurfaces" Optics Express 33, 8971 (2025) https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.543602 Phase-change materials are media with […]

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

How to take a gray concrete building amd make it beautiful. Scandicci (Italy). Author unknown (to me). #StreetArt

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

Sono qualche giorno in Italia a trovare i miei e ho fatto l'errore di guardare 5 minuti di TV (Fazio che intervistava giornalisti). Ora mi ricordo perché mi rifiuto di guardare la TV italiana. 🤮

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

submitted 16 days ago • 6 comments

#PhysicsJournalClub "Three-dimensional holographic imaging of incoherent objects through scattering media" by Y. Baek, H. de Aguiar and @sylvaingigan arXiv:2502.01475v1 #optics #physics #imaging As you daily experience anytime you look at anything, light scattering severely impairs your […]

submitted 16 days ago • 1 comment

Eight research groups disbanded (and 46 people fired) at the University of Twente (NL). This include the Complex Photonic Systems group, where I did 3 years of postdoc. It is the end of an era 😢 https://www.utoday.nl/news/75196/dismissal-for-46-st-employees-complete-research-groups-disbanded

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

Trying to read a paper in my field of specialization and truly struggling. Not sure if it is my brain shutting down, or if the paper could have been more clearly written. Probably a combination of both.

submitted 17 days ago • 1 comment

A #Pavia l'università vieta alla maggiore associazione studentesca di discutere del #DecretoSicurezza con la Rete #Antifascista. Come nel #fascismo, dice che non si può parlare di politica. Lo stesso giorno, il 10 febbraio, con il beneplacito […] [Original post on mastodon.maurovanetti.info]

submitted 21 days ago • 0 comments

#PhysicsJournalClub "Emergence of collective oscillations in massive human crowds" by Francois Gu et al. Nature 638, 112 (2025) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08514-6 The flow of granular media (think nuts or sand in a pipe) is a notoriously difficult system to deal with, with a smooth […]

submitted 21 days ago • 0 comments

#PhysicsJournalClub "The Tumultuous Birth of Quantum Mechanics" by Philip Ball https://physics.aps.org/articles/v18/24 "quantum mechanics wasn’t created all at once. It took several decades and was a messy, confused process, during most of which the true nature of this revolution was obscure […]

submitted 23 days ago • 0 comments

#PhysicsJournalClub "Anderson Transition for Light in a Three-Dimensional Random Medium" by A. Yamilov, H. Cao, and S. Skipetrov Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 046302 (2025) Anderson localization is a phenomenon where wave interference in a disordered scattering medium results in the wave being unable […]

submitted 25 days ago • 2 comments

Most Youtube creators: You should make bite-sized videos with engaging thumbnails and a clickbait title if you want any engagement. Noah: Publishes a 6.5h long video with a simple, self-explanatory title and an almost black thumbnail, and I just can't stop watching it. #Videogame #VideoEssay […]

submitted 25 days ago • 1 comment

I am suitably impressed by professors' offices at Oxford.

submitted 28 days ago • 0 comments

Here is where I admit I have no clue what a monad is in either Maths or Computer Science (I know what it is in Leibniz Philosophy, but I have the strong suspicion that is not going to help me much). #IAdmitIgnorance

submitted 29 days ago • 1 comment

Every "Our healthcare/education system/food/etc. is the best in the world and everyone envy us" claim is invariably BS, and generally comes from never having looked at how things work elsewhere. #rant #petpeeve

submitted 31 days ago • 0 comments

How is #DnDbeyond still down? 🤬 #dnd

submitted 32 days ago • 1 comment

If someone is not willing to listen, why should I bother trying to explain something to them?

submitted 33 days ago • 1 comment

Feels like the right time to start planning for moving all international scientific conferences to somewhere outside the US.

submitted 34 days ago • 3 comments

Fiddling with #Pixelfed (I am not good at all at it) and experimentally posting something there to see how it works: @[email protected]

submitted 34 days ago • 0 comments

[depressing world news] Today in "The world wasn't horribly fucked up enough, so we are going to make it worse for everyone." […]

submitted 34 days ago • 0 comments

Advice to the newcomers nobody asked for: Before you start follow people, put something in your profile. Even better if you start with a introductory post explaining who you are. So the people you start following can know who you are and maybe follow you back (e.g. if they know you from other […]

submitted 36 days ago • 0 comments

"Musk has a pathological need to be liked and he (correctly) assumed that the audience would cheer him" is a much more believable explanation than all the "it wasn't a real nazi salute" BS many journalists are spouting.

submitted 37 days ago • 0 comments

Always remember: reducing your personal carbon footprint is the morally correct thing to do, but it is also irrelevant compared to all the environmental damage done by big corporations (who highly prefer you to feel guilty about your actions than to be held […] [Original post on mathstodon.xyz]

submitted 37 days ago • 0 comments

Brief list of useful online tools for #LaTeX users: www.unicodeit.net to use Maths symbols on pages that do not support LaTeX (e.g. here) www.tablesgenerator.com/latex_tables to generate tables without going mad editor.codecogs.com to get an image of your equations you can copy-paste […]

submitted 39 days ago • 0 comments

Will be at Oxford at the end of the month for a PhD viva. Anyone there who wants to come to say hi and get a coffee? 🙂

submitted 42 days ago • 0 comments

One of the dirty secrets of modern times is that we already have the technology for flying cars, but everybody with even the vaguest understanding of Physics or Engineering that has thought about it for more than 5 minutes has realized they are a VERY bad idea and left them to movies and videogames.

submitted 42 days ago • 0 comments

Will be at Oxford at the end of the month for a PhD viva. Anyone there who wants to come to say hi and get a coffee? 🙂

submitted 42 days ago • 0 comments

In the world of theoretical #Physics that fridge would consume 5 10⁵ eV² and the ceiling would be just 10⁷ eV⁻¹ tall. There is MUCH worse than kWh per day out there 😉 https://xkcd.com/3038/

submitted 43 days ago • 0 comments

#PhysicsFactlet It's a foggy day here in Albion, so let's talk about light (multiple) scattering! Fog is composed of micrometre sized water droplet that can scatter light. This has two main effects: some of the light that was supposed to reach your eyes don't (because it is scattered away), and […]

submitted 43 days ago • 0 comments

Made an account on #Pixelfed just to realise you can already see my posts from there, so I actually don't need one. Isn't the interconnectivity of the Fediverse a marvel? 😃

submitted 44 days ago • 0 comments

#PhysicsFactlet Light propagates in a straight line (actually it is more complicated than that, but this is good enough for us here) and we see only the light that comes to our eyes. As a result you usually don't see the light going from its source to the […] [Original post on mathstodon.xyz]

submitted 44 days ago • 0 comments

"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure" (Goodhart's law) The story goes as follows: someone made a test to check how capable LLMs were. They didn't do well. But then new LLMs were created and trained specifically to pass the test, and lo and behold, they actually […]

submitted 45 days ago • 0 comments