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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

new video: this is the story how half-integers originally entered quantum physics, setting the stage for the exclusion principle and spin youtu.be/A9OQRHhk8eA 🧪⚛️🔭 #chemsky

youtu.be

Quantum numbers weren't supposed to do this

YouTube video by Dr. Jorge S. Diaz

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

new video: in "The Helium Problem" I present some limitations of old quantum theory, the problems with the theory exposed by the helium atom, and the initial germ of the idea of spin by Sommerfeld in 1920 (yes, 5 years in advance) youtu.be/EqgbfdesMG4 🧪⚛️🔭 #chemsky

youtu.be

When helium broke quantum theory

YouTube video by Dr. Jorge S. Diaz

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

as a physicist, one of my favorite facts is that the laws of physics can be derived from the Principle of Stationary Action. Nature is an optimization machine. To your question, Hamilton's principle is the generalization of Fermat's principle (for least time) and Maupertuis' principle (mechanics)

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

I worked on the phenomenology of the neutrino sector during my PhD but I got some taste of the QED sector during my postdoc studying the effects of the dimension-4 CPT-even operator in cosmic-ray showers and gamma-ray observations. Good memories.

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

this brings back memories from grad school about a CPT-odd, dimension-3 operator in electrodynamics to study Lorentz-symmetry violation... I am sure you are familiar with it (Kostelecký was my supervisor)

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

after almost a year I finally managed to get access back to this site, expect posts about many videos about the history of quantum theory that I have published in these months

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Hi, I am a theoretical physicist, during my free time I run a YouTube channel for physics nerds (www.youtube.com/@jkzero/). I share stories about discoveries and their protagonists complemented by animations and some calculations to take the viewer on an active journey of scientific discovery.

youtube.com

Dr. Jorge S. Diaz

Theoretical physicist creating physics content. I share stories about physics and their protagonists complemented by nice animations, visualizations, and some calculations to take the viewer on an act...

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

Neutrinos: "shielding? awww, that's cute" ⚛️

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

new video: "Lagrangian Mechanics: when theoretical physics got real." In addition to some history, I take Newtonian mechanics and derive Hamilton’s principle, revealing how the mysterious quantity K-U naturally appears, answering the common question "why is L=K-U?" youtu.be/QbnkIdw0HJQ 🧪⚛️🔭 #chemsky

title: Lagrangian Mechanics and a representation of L=K-U asking for the reason of the minus sign

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

oh yeah, some lazy versions of the story simply claim that Taylor just assumed this constant to be 1, which I even find offensive when you see all the work behind that calculation

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

he was also known as "the Italian navigator that landed in the new world" when the Chicago Pile reached criticality

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

an important question is: where does the value on the rhs of eq. (1) comes from? Some versions of the story claim that he guessed it or that he calibrated it from small explosions, the truth is that most of his paper is about calculating this number. I made a video about this youtu.be/8ru_LpjuabY

youtu.be

Size of a nuclear blast

YouTube video by Dr. Jorge S. Diaz

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 21/09/2025

Sep. 21, 1909: Einstein presents at the Salzburg conference his discovery that Planck's radiation law hides a quantum Easter egg: the wave-particle duality of light. Details in "This is how the wave-particle duality of light was discovered" youtu.be/f7JvywBOGYY 🧪⚛️🔭 #chemsky

representation of the energy fluctuations of light being describe by a wave and particle component

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

enjoy beautiful Heidelberg, despite the clouds and windy start of the week. We save the sun for the last part of the week, enjoy!

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

thanks for clarifying your point, I get it now, I misunderstood it.

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 31/08/2025

I strongly disagree with the "we should do everything we can to keep them around," what if the person doesn't want to "be kept around"? maybe the person wants stability, mental health, a life... the "we should do everything we can to keep them around" sounds like focusing the PI's viewpoint only.

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

new video: "This is how Heisenberg created quantum mechanics." A step-by-step guide to understand Heisenberg's groundbreaking but cryptic paper of quantum mechanics.🧪⚛️🔭 #chemsky #QuantumPhysics youtu.be/oVzzIkkYGY8

youtu.be

This is how Heisenberg created quantum mechanics - a step-by-step guide #SoME4

YouTube video by Dr. Jorge S. Diaz

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 19/08/2025

sí, claro, Luis Huerta era el nombre que todos escuchábamos. Buenos tiempos.

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 18/08/2025

qué buenos recuerdos me traes, Martín. Muy bien la pasé en las Olimpiadas de Física en Chile, hice buenos amigos y volví a casa con medallas tres años consecutivos

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 10/08/2025

when I was an undergraduate student, I was convinced that "Bremsstrahlung" was the last name of some German physicist named Wilhelm Bremsstrahlung, or something like that. Just like "Gauge invariance" was obviously named after some French physicist named François Gauge.

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 02/08/2025

new video: "The origin of a bizarre quantum phenomenon." The story of a wrong theory and a wrong plot that gave rise to a weird the concept of zero-point energy. Part 6 of my series on the road to Heisenberg's matrix formulation of quantum mechanics.🧪⚛️🔭 #chemsky #QuantumPhysics youtu.be/DgrOm5nsm98

youtu.be

The origin of a bizarre quantum phenomenon

YouTube video by Dr. Jorge S. Diaz

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 12/07/2025

new video: "The quantum theory created to eliminate the photon," part 5 of my series on the road to Heisenberg's matrix formulation of quantum mechanics presents Bohr's last attempt to vanquish Einstein's light quanta 🧪⚛️🔭 #chemsky #QuantumPhysics youtu.be/Jcv90l9R728

youtu.be

The quantum theory created to eliminate the photon

YouTube video by Dr. Jorge S. Diaz

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 07/07/2025

Some people find meaning in relationships between fundamental numbers, I find it useless but amusing. Here is one that I found many years ago: the abundance of U-235 in natural uranium (0.72%) is equal to the approximate value of the fine-structure constant (1/137)

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

how can the News and Views of an open access paper be behind paywall?! #sigh

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

new video: "The virtual orchestra of quantum mechanics," part 4 of my series on the road to Heisenberg's matrix formulation of quantum mechanics 🧪⚛️🔭 #chemsky #QuantumPhysics youtu.be/UbFrVCYDANg

youtu.be

The virtual orchestra of quantum mechanics

YouTube video by Dr. Jorge S. Diaz

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

new video: "The lesser-known link between Bohr and Heisenberg," part 3 of my series on the road to Heisenberg's matrix formulation of quantum mechanics 🧪⚛️ #chemsky #IYQ2025 youtu.be/9hfQZMBQOiw

youtu.be

The lesser-known link between Bohr and Heisenberg

YouTube video by Dr. Jorge S. Diaz

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

new video: "Pink Floyd and the roots of Quantum Mechanics," part 2 of my series on the road to Heisenberg's matrix formulation of quantum mechanics 🧪⚛️ #chemsky youtu.be/HC0a33HnTuE

youtu.be

Pink Floyd and the roots of Quantum Mechanics

YouTube video by Dr. Jorge S. Diaz

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

the dark oval is the region of low light intensity and the bright ring around is the convergence of light rays refracted away from the center. I think it is the static version of dark and bright zones at the bottom of a pool. I am not an optics expert, this is just how I interpret this phenomenon.

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

I love those shadows, my guess is that this is a mixture of surface tension and Snell's law: the bug deforms the water surface tilting the normal towards the bug's leg producing an effective "diverging lens" so light rays are refracted away from where they would have landed in the absence of the bug

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

new video: Einstein's groundbreaking work on radiation that set the basis of the laser and paved the way to Heisenberg's Matrix Mechanics 🧪⚛️ #chemsky youtu.be/_lC6-RUI7PQ

youtu.be

Matrix Mechanics: The Genesis

YouTube video by Dr. Jorge S. Diaz

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

dogo looks like that classic 1927-portrait of Werner Heisenberg with that hat repository.aip.org/werner-heise...

repository.aip.org

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

new video: Louis de Broglie is well known for proposing matter waves; however, less known is that he also found the first quantum wave equation. An improved version of this equation was later rediscovered by Schrödinger, Klein, and Gordon🧪⚛️ #chemsky youtu.be/cPpfAyfdWTI

youtu.be

Quantum wave equation before Schrödinger

YouTube video by Dr. Jorge S. Diaz

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

new video: part 3 of de Broglie's unification of wave and particles, now showing that Fermat's principle of ray optics is equivalent to Maupertuis' principle for the dynamics of particles as well as the prediction that gave him the 1929 Nobel Prize in Physics🧪⚛️ #chemsky youtu.be/2z8D-NqnBk4

youtu.be

Pilot-wave theory (part 3): unifying waves and particles

YouTube video by Dr. Jorge S. Diaz

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

that is what the student deserves for calling the Dirac delta a "function" instead of a distribution

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

thanks for sharing, I didn't know about this network, and I will definitely check these lectures

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

thanks for this, I really enjoyed reading your article. I only learned about Grete Hermmann after reading "What is real?"and listening to @seanmcarroll.bsky.social's podcast episode with @adambecker.bsky.social

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Reposted by Dr. Jorge Diaz

Cliò Agrapidis @cagrap.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

Today in Paris marks the inauguration of the #IYQ2025! To celebrate, I’m launching Women of Quantum—a series highlighting the women who have shaped and continue to shape this field. Who better to start with than Grete Hermann? More about her on the blog! 👩🏻‍🔬🧪⚛️ clioagrapidis.com/2025/02/04/w...

A digital portrait of Grete Hermann based on a picture. She is smiling with an open mouth. She is outlined in deep navy against a yellow background. Art by Cliò Agrapidis

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Reposted by Dr. Jorge Diaz

Sean Carroll @seanmcarroll.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

Commemorating the 100th anniversary of the first full formulation of quantum mechanics, in Nature. Half celebrating its successes, half explaining that there’s still plenty of work to be done. #Physics ⚛️ www.nature.com/articles/d41...

nature.com

Why even physicists still don’t understand quantum theory 100 years on

Quantum mechanics depicts a counter-intuitive reality in which the act of observation influences what is observed — and few can agree on what that means.

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

this is one of my favorite episodes of @seanmcarroll.bsky.social's podcast, Preskill presents quantum computing for real, without the hype

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Reposted by Dr. Jorge Diaz

The Veg Doc Ⓥ @thevegdoc.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

I love stupid science jokes. #medsky #chemsky #science

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

I made a video about this Compton's experiment; making one mistake after another, he improved his interpretation and confirmed light as a particle. Peter Debye independently discovered the theory of the Compton effect but declared that Compton deserved all the credit🧪⚛️ #chemsky youtu.be/Ap9os356CZA

youtu.be

This effect confirmed light particles

YouTube video by Dr. Jorge S. Diaz

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

love this book, one that really made me understand so many odd ways my brain operates. More importantly, how others' brains operate; this book gave such a great peace of mind. Enjoy it.

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

new video: "Pilot-wave theory (part 2): explaining Bohr's atom." De Broglie's explanation of Bohr's atomic quantization rule, plus a brief lesson on the physics of waves, and some historical connection with Sommerfeld & Brillouin's work on the speed of signals🧪⚛️ #chemsky youtu.be/5MMs6iFSiY8

youtu.be

Pilot-wave theory (part 2): explaining Bohr's atom

YouTube video by Dr. Jorge S. Diaz

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

thanks, I am glad you liked it. Make sure to check the rest of the playlist on quantum mechanics

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

¿podrías explicar a qué te refieres con tus razones?

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

I made a video about this Millikan's experiment (not to be confused with Millikan's oil-drop experiment), in which he measured Planck's constant. Importantly, this experiment was designed to prove Einstein wrong, which backfired spectacularly🧪⚛️ #chemsky youtu.be/fQzirkrXOxk

youtu.be

Millikan tests Einstein's Light Theory

YouTube video by Dr. Jorge S. Diaz

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Dr. Jorge Diaz @jsdiaz.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

I like the simplifications and color choice. In my case, the old version triggers good memories of school chemistry. I recall picking a large periodic table from the trash that was discarded at my school, I cherished it and place it in my room next to my Einstein, Heisenberg, and Schrödinger posters

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