iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 5h

Yes, I know THE and Times aren't technically the same thing, but if two orderings disagree so wildly with one another, how can we trust any of them?

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 5h

Oxford University is the best in the world (Times Higher Education World Rankings 2027) yet 5th best in the UK (Times University Guide 2027). St Andrews at no.1 in the UK and ranks it 185th in the world. Behind 23 other UK institutions.

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

If you've never heard a fire alarm at work it isn't because there haven't been any fires. It's because your institution didn't install smoke detectors.

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

From their own article "St Andrews, ranked second in the Guardian’s university league table for 2026, accepts one of the highest percentages in the UK of privately educated students. " St Andrews was just ranked top of the Times UK university rankings.

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Newspaper publishes "University Guide" that correlates high scores with middle/upper class students. Newspaper is then shocked to find classism rampant at one of its top ranked institutions. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

theguardian.com

‘It’s like the Scottish Upper East Side’: shame and snobbery as American students blamed for St Andrews classism

Online comments reflect class tensions at Scottish university between those from lower-income families and wealthier US undergraduates

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Very much this. I don't teach my students so they know physics, I teach them so they can think like a physicist*. * An idealized physicist. In a vacuum. I know how some of my colleagues actually think...

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

I'm patiently waiting for the deluge of "All the jobs have been given to less qualified applicants who only got the position because they are sexual harassers" complaints. Bets on whether they get here before Godot?

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

When you ask me what's wrong with #science in #academia, you get a rant. Thankfully the excellent editors at @bigthink.com made it coherent. #academicsky 🔭🧪

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FQxI @fqxi.org · 01/09/2026

Science needs people who can afford to be wrong. Yet we seem to have built a career ladder that removes them. [VISUAL THREAD]

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

So I guess the mnemonic for the great lakes will need to be updated from HOMES to SHAME.

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

An excellent volume, with work by great researchers at the interface of physics and philosophy. And some weird guy who kept going on about cosmology.

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FQxI @fqxi.org · 21/08/2026

Jordan Scharnhorst is one of our new FQxI Fellows. He’s joining us for Foundational Answers, a programme taking stock of progress on 10 major topics in foundational science and identifying the questions still open. A part of that work is adversarial collaboration. Jordan explains what that means.

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Absolutely - looking historically emphasises both the need for repeated experiments and tests of independent predictions of the theory.

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Total eclipse today - the 1919 eclipse was the first big demonstration of gravitational lensing, with GR getting the "right" amount of lensing, beating the Newtonian prediction. If, like me, you thought the Newtonian prediction should be zero, well, read on...

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

To be fair it has appeared on the Guardian's website: www.theguardian.com/education/20... “In one example the person being complained about drafted the response to the claimant rejecting his complaints against them.” How could this ever be considered a good idea?

theguardian.com

University of Cambridge whistleblower who reported alleged bullying wins employment tribunal

Prof Wyn Evans, who raised concerns over treatment of female staff at Institute of Astronomy, was subject to ‘baseless’ investigation, judge rules

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Wonder if this will get the same level of media attention that other Cambridge news always seems to get.

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FQxI @fqxi.org · 07/08/2026

Some physicists believe that the future can influence the past. For someone hearing that for the first time... it sounds pretty crazy. We spoke briefly to Matthew Leifer about how that can possibly be true!

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

To be fair, that's how paper* used to work. * yes, I know, in a generic sense of the word.

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

"You've been poisoned. Would you like one dose of antidote or to play the roulette wheel for 100 doses?"

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Food Security for Equitable Futures @foodequity.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

🍸 Three #FlashFinding cocktail punches on #FoodSecurity in post-COVID India. Fast, evidence-based insights on how households coped & what this means for food systems and policy. 📽️ ✔️ youtube.com/shorts/Liq1U... ✔️ youtube.com/shorts/CSvdJ... ✔️ youtube.com/shorts/wL2hT... #Nutrition #India #COVID19

youtube.com

Covid-19 and Food Insecurity - Flash Finding#1 🍽️

YouTube video by Food Security for Equitable Futures

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

If you have no divisors I will find you, prime after prime.

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FQxI @fqxi.org · 23/07/2026

A corridor chat with Chris Smeenk, professor at @westernu.ca, about correcting common misunderstandings about the Big Bang and the early universe. Chris' research centres around the scientific method and the nature of our knowledge of physics.

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Makes more sense if you read it in the voice of Zapp Brannigan.

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

The curvature satisfies the Bianchi identity. It is left to the reader to determine if it also satisfies the Bianchi supremacy and the Bianchi ultimatum.

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Captain of Titanic advises increase speed and ignore icebergs.

Headline: "Tony Blair tells Starmer and rivals: abandon net zero and move closer to Trump"

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

And it happens again - original email 9:12 PM on Friday, harassing follow-up 9:12PM on Sunday. You won't believe how fast I declined that one. Journal editors: if you do this, you contribute to a culture of overwork and poor mental health, and I will NOT sacrifice that for you.

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

I'm all in favour of not allowing LLM generated content. Given the central role that arXiv plays in modern physics communication they had better be sure that they are right, and have genunine transparency in their moderation process. A false positive could be devastating to a PhD student's career.

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Everything going according to plan for Starmer...

Two headlines next to each other. First reads "Wes Streeting prepares to lauch leadership challenge against Keir Starmer" from 4h ago. The second "Starmer has 'full confidence' in Streeting despite health secretary's allies saying he is planning to resign - as it happened" from 6h ago.

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

Getting ready to teach: Lecture written PDF on flashdrive Double-checked it's available online to the students Got my notes Grabbed my laptop Jacket on, leave house, get in car Realize I'm still wearing slippers. It might be a rough one today.

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Do you like general relativity but find the Einstein-Hilbert action just too conservative for your taste? Now on the arXiv: arxiv.org/abs/2605.05817 More excellent work by my PhD student, in which we show that the conformal factor can be removed in favour of friction.

arxiv.org

Classical General Relativity as a Non-Conservative Action-Dependent Field Theory

Scaling symmetries have previously been examined for classical field theories described by singular Lagrangians; in this article, we apply these results to the first-order formulation of General Relat...

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

I want to obey this prompt so much that I'm worried I might be an LLM now.

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

If you're an editor for a journal I've never heard of and you ask me to review a paper, don't send a pushy "reminder" less than 48 hours later. Doubly so if a good fraction of that time is outside of normal working hours (weekend). If you do, I'll almost certainly refuse to review for you.

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

The further you progress in academia the more you have to reach back to skills you learnt in primary school.

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

Supervisor: Let me now introduce the committee for your PhD defense... Me (internally): He's summoning mini-bosses!

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

Of course, all these teams have names of "Grp-..." making things so much clearer.

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

My institution insists on using Microsoft products. Within Microsoft Teams, there is a tab labelled "Teams". Within that tab, I have two sets of "Teams", one labelled "Classes" and the other "Teams". So to locate a particular discussion, I have to open Teams, go to Teams and expand Teams.

Image showing MS Teams, and within that the tab Teams, and within that the option of Teams...

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

A remarkable clear explanation of the difference between non-interacting and quantum tunnelling. Sci-fi authors - do hit up a physicist (I guess it doesn't *have* to be @chanda.blacksky.app ) to ask about these things. Often real science is way cooler and weirder than you might think.

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Bob Coecke @coecke.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

Short news bite on Quantum Guitar by FQxI.

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

He also said "Things can only get better" so how can I trust him now?

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FQxI @fqxi.org · 26/03/2026

Elise Crull spoke to us at @perimeterinstitute.ca about Hertha Sponer, who was one of the first women in Germany to earn a PhD in physics, and a pioneer of quantum chemistry.

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

I spent a small fortune on travel to and taking the GRE, application fees, etc. I begged academics for reference letters and had no idea what the hell to write in a "Personal statement". Result: rejection letters from almost everywhere I applied. I got two offers and no clues on how to choose.

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Jasmine Fledderjohann @jfledderjohann.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Can't wait to share our participatory #Photography exhibition in #Lancaster @ the #Gregson on 22nd May 7:30-11:00 pm! The work is about #ReproductiveJustice in N. England by people w/lived experience of social inequity and representatives from community orgs. Details: gregson.co.uk/event/repron...

gregson.co.uk

ReproNorth: “We’re telling our own story” - The Gregson

This event will be a celebration of a photography project ...

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

Also your goal to "develop and validate scalable indicators that can identify novelty in research" looks like you want just another way to boil complex research down to a number which will be gamed like every other index (Citation count, h-index etc) and contribute yet more bullshit to research.

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David Sloan @davesmaths.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

Not a great sign that your metascience project will be able to access expert assessment when you match me to a research area nowhere near my own, based on a paper I didn't write.

Email text reading: "To David Sloan,

The UK government's Metascience Unit and the University of Sussex are keen to receive your expert assessments on the novelty of selected publications within your expertise.

We have matched your work (Exploring pedagogical culture for accessibility education in computing science. (DOI: 10.1145/2899475.2899490)) as relevant to at least one publication in our project, which we would like you to assess."

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FQxI @fqxi.org · 04/03/2026

Aswathy told us that her essay began with a number from a failed calculation... "I looked it up expecting nothing and found that independent biological systems - cortical columns, capillary networks, the developing embryo had been converging on it for millions of years."

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