jimbaggott.bsky.social
Science writer based in Cape Town. Author of 'Atomic', ‘The Quantum Story’, ‘Mass’, ‘Quantum Drama’ (with John Heilbron), and lots more. Migrant from symbol-formerly-known-as-Twitter. Also on Substack: jimbaggott.substack.com. www.jimbaggott.com.
69 posts
351 followers
179 following
Regular Contributor
Active Commenter
comment in response to
post
I visited Monterey Aquarium in 1982 or 3. When Cape Town opened its new Aquarium in 1995, I was astonished to find I’d been there before, even though this was impossible. It was pretty much an exact copy of Monterey!
comment in response to
post
Yes, but my watch doesn’t do microseconds. 😎
comment in response to
post
I think that, by definition, any room with a temperature of 420 C won’t have humans in it for very long.
comment in response to
post
Alas, Newton’s second law is not about gravity, but I didn’t let this spoil the movie for me.
comment in response to
post
Most definitely.
comment in response to
post
Not really. Niche in terms of the totality of academic physics, not niche in terms of their disproportionate representation in the ‘media’. But hey, fantasy is always more interesting than fact.
comment in response to
post
Alas ‘Physics’, meaning a relatively small group of a certain kind of theoretical physicist, ceased all seriousness quite some time ago.
comment in response to
post
Although, awkwardly, the authorities in Oxford that sponsored him found that they were paying not only for his wife, but also for his mistress.
comment in response to
post
Actually, he was Austrian.
comment in response to
post
That’s no bad thing. But reading your own stuff typically results in one of two reactions: oh this is really awful I could write this much better now, or oh wow this is brilliant! did I write this?
comment in response to
post
Here’s a 10-hour video of paint drying if you need a break. 😳 youtu.be/PLOPygVcaVE?...
comment in response to
post
Just started reading Karla’s Choice. Thoroughly enjoying it (I think I read all of your dad’s Smiley oeuvre in the late 70s when I was a uni student - which was quite some time ago). Also, just subscribed to your Substack. 😎
comment in response to
post
Still. Knives. Can’t be too careful.
comment in response to
post
Safety precaution: just check that it doesn’t have sharp knives in it. youtu.be/xggFzkyd288?...
comment in response to
post
Spike Milligan. Little Dutch time bomb. Tik Tok boom.
comment in response to
post
Oooh. Then why not 1905 (Einstein’s light-quantum), or 1911 (Bohr’s atomic theory), or 1923 (de Broglie’s wave-particle duality)?
comment in response to
post
… complementarity in 1927. At the Solvay conference in October 1927 Heisenberg and Born argued that quantum mechanics was now a ‘complete’ theory, and Einstein began his famous debate with Bohr. So, my money’s on 1927 as the year of the ‘birth’ of quantum mechanics. 😎
comment in response to
post
In 1925 Heisenberg discovered matrix mechanics and in early 1926 Schrodinger discovered wave mechanics. Born added his ‘rule’ in 1926 and Heisenberg discovered the uncertainty principle in early 1927. Arguably, all these ingredients constitute ‘quantum mechanics’. Bohr formulated his principle of …
comment in response to
post
First task. Understand why people are disappointed, disillusioned, and disenfranchised.
comment in response to
post
I once visited the Rijksmuseum Boerhaave in Leiden (must have been sometime in 1989). The Paul Ehrenfest archive is held there.
comment in response to
post
These are readable and insightful analyses. But is there a bigger picture somewhere? Is the rise of far-right populism across so many mature Western economies a symptom of inexorable decline? If liberal democracy ultimately fails or is substantially undermined, what are the likely consequences?
comment in response to
post
The problem for the centre-left is that it tries to fight the populist fantasies of the far right with truth and honesty (at least about the economy) but, it seems, this is not what people want to hear. I’m not convinced any amount of spin will change public perception anytime soon.
comment in response to
post
In fact, Einstein and Podolsky had a big falling out after the paper was published, not because of what was written in it, but because Podolsky leaked it to the press before it was published.