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Chris Poulton

@chrispoulton.bsky.social
124 followers 124 following 53 posts

Physicist, researcher in photonics. Avid consumer of books and coffee. Professor and Head of Physics at UTS; all opinions are his own etc.

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Reposted by Chris Poulton
yen is building stuff @weiyen.net · 08/10/2026
I wonder if this is how people felt when Euler showed up
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Chris Poulton @chrispoulton.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Statement by Terry Tao on AI in mathematics: "The mathematical community functions, in many ways, as a miniature version of humanity... The most precious resources of our profession are students and ideas, and these we nurture with great care." terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/09/11/a...
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Chris Poulton @chrispoulton.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
It appears that the Navier-Stokes problem has fallen. Leaving aside the, ah, turbulence in the provenance, it's interesting that it is a *disproof*: i.e. there are smooth solutions, obeying the laws of physics everywhere, that result in singularities. Not what I expected! openai.com/index/navier...
openai.com
On the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize Problem
We’re sharing an AI-generated solution to the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize Problem, including a writeup and a formal proof in Lean.
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Reposted by Chris Poulton
Zach Weinersmith @zachweinersmith.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
For anyone not following the drama, there's been apparently a big development in ai math, along with some accusations of very bad behavior by OpenAI. But we don't have details yet. If I understand it, Buckmaster and Levent Alpoge made a big discovery on Navier-Stokes. Events go something like this:
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Chris Poulton @chrispoulton.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Clearly showing my age while editing a paper draft
A scientific paper in draft form, on which someone has scrawled "more cowbell" in almost illegible handwriting below one of the figure captions
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Reposted by Chris Poulton
Opal @opalescentopal.bsky.social · 27/07/2025
With Tom Lehrer's passing, I suppose this is a moment to share the story of the prank he played on the National Security Agency, and how it went undiscovered for nearly 60 years.
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Chris Poulton @chrispoulton.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
Great news: our tutorial paper on statistical methods for Brillouin spectroscopy is now out! Brillouin spectroscopy is often messy, with multiple closely-spaced spectral peaks which may have weird shapes; statistical methods help you separate the different features. pubs.aip.org/aip/app/arti...
pubs.aip.org
Statistical data analysis methods in Brillouin spectroscopy: Tutorial
The non-contact and label-free nature of Brillouin microscopy, a type of optical elastography, is contributing to the growing popularity of this technology worl
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Chris Poulton @chrispoulton.bsky.social · 11/05/2025
It's because banh mi are totally awesome amp.abc.net.au/article/1052...
amp.abc.net.au
Why are Australians obsessed with bánh mì, the Vietnamese roll with the complex history? - ABC News
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Chris Poulton @chrispoulton.bsky.social · 03/05/2025
A greatly underappreciated of Australian democracy: polls close and the result is known 3 hours later. Paper ballots, ranked-choice voting, no fancy tech needed. #AusVotes25
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Chris Poulton @chrispoulton.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
Best thing about voting in Australia. #democracysausage
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Chris Poulton @chrispoulton.bsky.social · 12/03/2025
New paper shows that sound can move faster than the speed of light!* *Terms and conditions apply. pubs.aip.org/aip/app/arti...
pubs.aip.org
Quasi-solitons and stable superluminal opto-acoustic pulses in Brillouin scattering
We theoretically and numerically study the evolution of soliton-like waves supported by stimulated Brillouin scattering. First, the emergence and unusual behavi
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Chris Poulton @chrispoulton.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
This gets to the heart of a big problem with AI in education. Calculators and other tools outsourced the lower-level tasks to a machine. LLMs tempt students to outsource the higher-level tasks as well.
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Reposted by Chris Poulton
Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 08/03/2024
Physics vs. Magic xkcd.com/2904
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Chris Poulton @chrispoulton.bsky.social · 09/02/2024
Great to catch up with friends and colleagues at WOMBAT 5 in Brazil!
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Chris Poulton @chrispoulton.bsky.social · 23/12/2023
PSA: drinking a couple of beers does not improve the experience of watching Rebel Moon.
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Chris Poulton @chrispoulton.bsky.social · 13/10/2023
Voted this morning, but there was no democracy sausage! This also should be constitutionally mandated.
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Chris Poulton @chrispoulton.bsky.social · 13/10/2023
My german wife asked me to hide the Nutella from her, so I hid it where no German would ever find it.
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