iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

San Francisco Bay in the 1830s — in particular, see the middle sentence. (Two Years Before The Mast, Richard Dana, published 1840)

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

I wrote about Kipling as a poet of engineering and technology, in a way rarely seen today. And other stuff - link in first comment.

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Sad to hear that Alasdair McIntyre has died. I read `After Virtue' as an undergraduate and it permanently influenced the way I view the world and think about ethics, politics and religion. A truly great book.

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

For LVS exponential, arising from the beautiful underlying no-scale structure of GKP compactifications, string loop tracker is the attractor during this roll -- can make the early universe dominated by a gas of superstrings even AFTER inflation. 3.3

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

As volume modulus rolls towards asymptotic corner of moduli space where promising vacua such as LVS are located, string tension decreases and string loops grow. Energy density in string loops grows relative to background (and radiation) leading to stable tracker 2/3

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

New paper today! With Noelia Sanchez-Gonzalez, @ProfEdCopeland and Ed Hardy arxiv.org/abs/2505.14187 We find that a superstring phase -- 75% energy density in fundamental strings -- is an attractor in post-inflationary phase of scalar rolling down exponential potential. 1/3

arxiv.org

Dynamical Systems and Superstring Phases in the Early Universe

We study the string theory dynamics of the volume scalar rolling down an exponential potential during the period between inflation and reheating, in a background of cosmic superstring loops. In the co...

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

Yes -- e.g the phrase 'cruel April' carries a pile of rich connotations, and similarly many two-word phrases carry very dense and rich meanings that go far beyond their syntax

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

A fight over poetry & Kolmogorov complexity is the sort of high culture fight I like!

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

Perfect equations are like perfect poems: they both exhibit maximal Kolmogorov complexity. This is also why good notation is to mathematics as the canon is to literature.

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Reposted by Joseph Conlon

Jo Durrant @jodurrant.co.uk · 10/05/2025

Had an enjoyable night last night at @cheltpoetfest.bsky.social hosting 2 science & poetry themed events, including being in conversation with @josephpconlon.bsky.social & @robinince.bsky.social. Thank you @annasaund.bsky.social for inviting me & @paulawhitcher.bsky.social for some of the photos.

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

The new Pope, patristics and the Big Bang. Leo XIV is an Augustinian. Augustine's discussion of time (Book XI of both Confessions & City of God) is brilliant and prophetic (read them!): 'the world was not created in time but with time'. We live in spacetime -- not space and time.

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

This Friday in Cheltenham -- do come along if you are nearby.

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

These seem a mixture of private and non-private grift (many, including myself, would view the former as much worse). Perhaps this case is similar to other previous ones -- certainly it would be more harmonious for everyone if it ends up viewed as consistent with existing norms.

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

To me, this was a clear aspect in the result of the most recent American presidential argument (but I don't want to argue this point if you disagree).

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

Because the needed comparison is with other more Europhile parties. And important because generally, attempts to win electoral arguments by legal/procedural means tend to end disastrously.

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

Well, my prior (given what is in the public domain about *private* grift in the European Parliament) is that non-private grift such as this would be common ( and brief research gives plenty of informed support for this). Is the scale different? Hard for me to say.

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

The test here is 'would someone from a party like the CDU (ignore the Germany/France distinction for the moment) be prosecuted on similar facts?'. And the answer might be yes -- as said, I don't know the precise facts.

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

e.g. prosecuting an unpopular politician for driving at 75mph on a clear motorway would not show they were also subject to the law, it would be rightly seen as a democratic affront *even if they were clearly guilty*.

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

I find the expression 'above the law' trite because most people and most politicians routinely violate the criminal law (driving above the speeding limit) and are not prosecuted, indeed would be outraged if they were prosecuted for it.

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

I will not go beyond saying that it is important that the same prosecution standard for 'misuse of parliamentary funds for party business' is applied to all parties (*this* is what is key to the `rule of law').

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

I don't know the precise facts and it could be that there was something especially egregious here. But it strains any reasonable belief that this was the only party using `parliamentary' funding for party business; the EP does not have a good reputation here.

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

Without knowing the precise factual details, the worry is the sense that many politicians are 'at it' on some level (cf MPs expenses) and that the prosecution was purely political in nature.

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

Next Friday I am talking at the Oxford literary festival: physics, poetry and the intersection of the two. Tickets available from oxfordliteraryfestival.org/literature-e...

oxfordliteraryfestival.org

Origins: The Cosmos in Verse | Oxford Literary Festival

Joseph Conlon - Origins: The Cosmos in Verse

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Reposted by Joseph Conlon

cheltpoetfest.bsky.social @cheltpoetfest.bsky.social · 23/03/2025

Here's the list of events! @ruthpadel.bsky.social opens the festival. Among the many highlights are @robinince.bsky.social, Michael Simmons Roberts, Robert Seatter, @josephpconlon.bsky.social, Sean Borodale, Fiona Benson, & the 15th Festival Slam. www.ticketsource.co.uk/cheltenhampo...

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

Jewel amongst dross. (one for the physicists and mathematicians)

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

Possibly the only sonnet on Dirac's Principles of Quantum Mechanics

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

Sonnets on Dirac's book Principles of Quantum Mechanics are not in the swampland. Hear me read one this afternoon.

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

Thanks to my wonderful grad students (especially Martin) for this cake for my birthday today!

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

To me, everyone who is clearly excellent (by Oxford standards) gets in irrespective of anything else. At the boundaries, it is right to consider all information as we try and take the best candidates.

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

This looks very different from the inside. In evaluating an Oxford physics test score, does it matter if (a) X is at university (b) is post A-level with completed double maths (c) can only take single maths because their school does not offer it? Yes. This is all contextual information.

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

Crude metrics like state/independent suggest more disadvantaged students go for hard science STEM subjects which are more willing to award 2:2s

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

I think you have fallen into a statistical trap here (same one as makes gender pay gap a bad statistic). 2:1 awarding is highly different between subjects - many humanities subjects have in effect abolished 2:1. Key to a proper statistical discussion is ratio of disadvantaged students per course.

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

Physics is eternal. Literature and poetry are near-eternal. Don't obsess about political news. Read good books (such as mine). linktr.ee/josephconlon

linktr.ee

Joseph Conlon | Linktree

Academic and writer. Origins: The Cosmos in Verse (2024)

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

Next week on 30th Jan I will be reading (online) as part of the The Brilliant's science in verse competition. Free tickets available here bit.ly/brilliantpoe...

bit.ly

The Brilliant Poetry - Inaugural Reading

Join us to experience how poetry brings the wonder of science to life - uniting creativity and discovery across borders.

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

Beautiful on a cold winter morning, as for the last 600 years.

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

Make sure the brackets are in the right place in the powers, it converges up to x=e^(1/e) and the maximum value it converges to is e.

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

An admissions interview question from this year (I never reuse questions). Consider the sequence x, x^x, x^(x^x), x^(x^(x^x)),..... For which values of x>0 does this sequence converge?

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

Great fun talking to the one and only @drbriankeating.bsky.social on his Into The Impossible podcast about poetry, my book Origins, string theory and string theory alternatives, science communication and Whitman or Feynman. As my son says, like and subscribe. Link in reply.

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Joseph Conlon @josephpconlon.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

Happy to see Origins reviewed in Nature Astronomy