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Matt Reece

@mreece.bsky.social
641 followers 390 following 280 posts

physicist, obsessed with axions. Boston resident. never had a twitter or a mastodon, but here I am, inexplicably.

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Reposted by Matt Reece
ae @aelkus.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
(had Dennis Nedry survived, he would have made a great candidate for chief information security officer at OpenAI)
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Matt Reece @mreece.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Remember when NASA used to post a big annual call for proposals in many research areas, on a regular schedule? I wonder if that will ever happen again.
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Matt Reece @mreece.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Maybe I was oblivious to other ways it affected me, but the only time I remember feeling out of place in an academic career path as a first-generation college student was the first time I went to a winter conference that paused every afternoon for people to ski (I never learned how).
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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 18/09/2026
This gets at something that’s been bugging me about the discourse around AI/N-S/Tao, etc. A lot of people are converting to what’s effectively a Romantic Author vision where they sound like Captain Kirk talking about how computers can never Love, except about Originality, Judgment, or Understanding.
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Matt Reece @mreece.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Lots of discussion here about a claim that Harvard faculty and students can request access to $2500 of Claude tokens a month, but: is that true?
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Matthew Buckley @physicsmatt.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Look, I don't mean to interrupt whatever the hell is going on around here, but you all want to hear about the Hubble Tension and possible solutions to it, right? That's right, it's new paper day. arxiv.org/abs/2609.16120
arxiv.org
Dark Radiation Sticks Together: Dark QCD and the Hubble Tension
We introduce a model of dark matter charged under a new confining gauge group akin to the Standard Model's quantum chromodynamics (QCD). The fermionic sector contains both heavy and light quark-like f...
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Matt Reece @mreece.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Dear train nerds of YouTube: please learn to pronounce "Fuxing" approximately correctly. Signed, the parents of a boy who really wants to watch videos about fast trains.
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Matt Reece @mreece.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Boggling that Harvard invited all faculty and postdocs to attend a "masterclass" on how to use AI for academic writing, run by a guy with only a handful of publications but an extensive YouTube record of his wacky ideas about fractals, Buddha, and Jungian psychiatry.
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Matt Reece @mreece.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
This semester I keep asking myself "why are there 20 quantum field theory textbooks and yet not a single book presents the subject in the way I want to teach it?" and of course it's because 20 other people have asked that question before.
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Matt Reece @mreece.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
One of my best footnotes: main text said “In some sense this is the frame that is maximally far from Einstein frame, but it is a very useful one; we can refer to it as the keinstein frame“, footnote read “Leaving no stone unturned in the pursuit of bad physics puns.” (In a 2015 paper with Wei Xue)
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Ben Safdi @bensafdi.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
With Nick Rodd, Tracy Slatyer, & Linda Xu: possible tension with LZ and higgsinos arxiv.org/abs/2609.04175 If the LZ event is from a thermal higgsino, you would also expect events in the high-energy sideband, but LZ reports none. The collaboration can definitively check this with their acceptance.
arxiv.org
Confronting the Higgsino Interpretation of the LZ Event with the High-Energy Sideband
The LZ experiment has reported a single 248 keV nuclear recoil event in their $2.84$ ton-yr exposure on a xenon target. The absence of lower nuclear recoil events is naturally explained by inelastical...
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Matt Reece @mreece.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
To me, it seems plausible that the uncertainty in the high-speed tail leaves room to fit LZ while pushing delta above their bound. There is a definite tension, though. Escaping their bound requires appealing to very uncertain dark matter astrophysics.
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Matt Reece @mreece.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
I should follow up my thread from yesterday because of this paper that appeared tonight from Maxim Pospelov and Hari Ramani. They derive a new bound on higgsino dark matter from particles being captured in the Sun through the same inelastic scattering process we proposed at LZ.
arxiv.org
Strong Constraints on Higgsino Dark Matter from Solar Capture
Higgsino dark matter remains one of the most convincing dark matter candidates. It can exist in a ``quasi-Dirac" regime, when the splitting between two Majorana components is on the order of $O(\rm fe...
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Matt Reece @mreece.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
The LZ dark matter experiment announced today that they observed a single nuclear recoil event at 250 keV. This is not what "vanilla" dark matter does, but it is exactly what you might expect inelastic dark matter to do. Our optimistic take (having known about the signal for days): 1/3
arxiv.org
Higgsino Above the Sea of Fog
Higgsino dark matter is a classic, but still viable, weakly-interacting massive particle (WIMP) scenario that could point to supersymmetry, a new spacetime symmetry of nature. It is a simple realizati...
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Science News @sciencenews.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Is this it? A single dot on a graph could be the first direct detection of a dark matter particle. www.sciencenews.org/article/dark-ma…
sciencenews.org
Have scientists glimpsed the first dark matter particle?
Shadowy dark matter has eluded scientists for decades. The LZ experiment may have spotted one particle, called a WIMP, but more data is needed to check.
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Peter Denton @jazzwhiz.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope NASA launch went well! A month or so for it to settle to L2 and then commissioning, but another great space science launch!! Ahhhh!!!
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Matt Reece @mreece.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
I love the urgent inquiries my three-year-old comes up with to try to delay bedtime. Tonight's gem: "I don't know if Brisbane has water taxis."
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Matt Reece @mreece.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
“Faculty lounge” discourse is odd to me because, as far as I’m aware, no department I’ve been in has ever had one. There is a (university-wide) Faculty Club, which mostly serves as a place to take interviewees for superficially nice but mediocre meals that are easy to bill to the department. 1/
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Matt Reece @mreece.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
I got a text telling me Maura Healey endorsed Nick Collins for state Senate, which is supposed to make me want to vote for him but somehow just lowers my already low opinion of both of them.
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The War on Cars @thewaroncars.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
A theme here is that if a person inside city government intervenes on behalf of a restaurant losing parking spots or a random driver getting a parking ticket, that's seen as constituent services. If another government insider works on behalf of keeping people alive, that's seen as advocacy.
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Matt Reece @mreece.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Today's talk from Gina Rameika at the Department of Energy at the APS DPF meeting made it clear that the US is completely abandoning any leadership, or even meaningful investment, in experimental particle physics. It's a complete disaster.
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Matt Reece @mreece.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
In 2015-ish, an official pre-tenure review from my department told me to do "a major breakthrough," so I can attest that telling a human this doesn't work at all. Luckily, as everyone reminds me, Harvard's tenure standards declined precipitously around the time I was hired, so I didn't lose my job.
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theseouldan.bsky.social @theseouldan.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
3 out of 4 of this year's Fields medalists are foreigners who got their phD in the US and would have been impacted by these rules
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Matt Reece @mreece.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Not for the first time I forgot the Red Line was shutting down, took the Orange Line downtown instead of the 1 bus to Harvard, and was confronted with the fact that the Red Line is somehow the only functional transit link from downtown to Cambridge.
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Matt Reece @mreece.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
My 3-year-old makes an inference consistent with all available data (i.e., Bluey books): "they don't wear clothes in Australia."
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Matt Reece @mreece.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
@boston.gov when?
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Stand Up for Science! @standupforscience.net · 13/07/2026
Today is the final day you can leave a public comment on the OMB proposal that will destroy American science as we know it. Leave your comment at the link in our bio, or go here: zurl.co/1M9hH and register for our OMB Deadline Day meeting today at the link in our bio! Article: zurl.co/3LQxi
zurl.co
Stand up for Science
Stand up for Science
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Sam Nelson @masnoslen.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
benjaminsiegel.github.io/enough-is-en... I've just signed this open letter to @mayorwu.boston.gov to resume the many stalled Safe Streets Projects across the City. I'm shaken and devastated by the death of Louisa Gag, cyclist and safe streets advocate.
benjaminsiegel.github.io
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH — An open letter to Mayor Wu on street safety
Boston has been warned for years that delayed street-safety projects would cost lives. Read and sign the open letter.
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Matt Reece @mreece.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Given the age range on bsky there must be a *lot* of us who keep having to stop and puzzle out that our feed isn't talking about the United States Mutant Ninja Turtles.
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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Iconic line from @stevevladeck.bsky.social here in response to Will Baude’s SCOTUS boosterism www.nytimes.com/2026/07/01/o...
Baude: I agree that we are in unprecedented times, maybe even a constitutional crisis, but if we survive it, the court deserves no small share of the credit.
Vladeck: Exactly the same credit we might give to the arsonist who shows up with a fire extinguisher.
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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Donald Trump came one vote away from getting the Supreme Court to say that the 14th Amendment does not guarantee birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented and temporary immigrants, a view held only by fringe far-right nativists until VERY recently. This is shocking. I am stunned.
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Matt Reece @mreece.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
5-4 on reading plain English. This court must be destroyed.
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vortex_egg @vortexegg.com · 30/06/2026
I had some people get offended when I pointed out several months ago that Ezra Klein is very obviously falling (or being dragged down) the fascist radicalization pipeline, but Klein is falling down the fascist radicalization pipeline, and chronicling his journey as propaganda in the NYT.
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The Boston LOL 💜 🚲 ⚡ @thebostonlol.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Boston needs to recoup the damage massive passenger cars/trucks cause, both in deaths and road wear, by adding a weight component to our city car tax @wutrain.bsky.social @ruthzee.bsky.social @clrhenrysantana.bsky.social @edflynnforboston.bsky.social @enriquepepen.bsky.social
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Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
The three branches of the United States government, as delineated in the Constitution, are the God Emperor, The High Council of the Six Ayatollahs, and the Federal Reserve
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Matt Reece @mreece.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
What's wrong with the physics arxiv today? @arxiv.bsky.social The arXiv website shows no new papers in any physics category, but the InspireHEP database does (search, e.g., "find primarch hep-th"). For a resource as widely used as arXiv, there really should be some kind of status announcement....
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Susan Stryker @susanstryker.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
“Just as monstrous and mutant algae invade the lagoon of Venice … in the field of social ecology, men like Donald Trump are permitted to proliferate freely, like another species of algae, taking over entire districts of New York.” —Félix Guattari, 1989
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lynn @chordbug.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
fixed your headline
A hit song on the Billboard 100 charts is termed *$k$-good* if it is _ever_ in a weekly top-$k$, and *$k$-immediate* if it _debuts_ in the top-$k$.


An artist is *$(n,k)$-Olivian* if their $n$ first $k$-good hits are all also $k$-immediate.

*Headline 1.* Olivia Rodrigo is the first $(10,10)$-Olivian woman.
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Vera Tobin @vtobin.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
I feel especially great about Brad Lander's whole trajectory through the mayoral campaign to where things stand now. A real win for menschism.
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Matt Reece @mreece.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Relatedly: let me advertise my newest paper, which may have been buried in today's extra-long arxiv listing. We provide more evidence for a claim I've been making for a few years, that the discovery of an axion could be a clue about the fundamental energy scale of quantum gravity.
arxiv.org
Quantum Gravity Cutoff from Axions: A Type IIB Landscape Study
Extra-dimensional axions have coupling strength related to fundamental, ultraviolet physics. It has been proposed that the properties of such axions imply a bound on the quantum gravity cutoff: $Λ_\ma...
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Matt Reece @mreece.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
A student brought me the perfect gift: an authentic box of "AXION."
Blue box with the word "AXION" in large orange letters. The top left corner labels it a "new laundry discovery from Colgate-Palmolive."
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Universal Hub @universalhub.com · 22/06/2026
How Boston's reflecting pool stacks up - we run the numbers www.universalhub.com/2026/how-bos...
Christian Science reflecting pool and Mother Church
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tbabb @tbabb.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
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Ben Monreal @benmonreal.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
lebensprawn
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Callalily @callalily57.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
They've discovered the cop slide. www.threads.com/@stuart.g.p/...
threads.com
Stuart G P (@stuart.g.p) on Threads
My pal discovered it....
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Matt Reece @mreece.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
Good work, South Enders! (I'm out of town at the moment, so a bit disappointed to miss this, which was filmed in the closest thing I have to a back yard.)
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Jonathan Cohn @jonathancohn.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Taxing the rich: it's good. #mapoli www.raiseupma.org/news/dor-fai...
raiseupma.org
DOR: Fair Share Revenue Up 20% Over First 10 Months of FY26, Already Exceeding $3 Billion — Raise Up Massachusetts
Tax on Million-Dollar Earners Continues to Exceed Revenue Projections, Proving Fears of Millionaire Flight False BOSTON – The State Department of Revenue yesterday certified that Massachusetts...
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Matt Reece @mreece.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
My colleagues overwhelmingly voted to restrict our own academic freedom by capping the number of A's for undergrads in a class. I sometimes teach advanced grad classes where maybe 6 of the 20 students are undergrads, and all do spectacularly well. I don't know what will happen to such classes now.
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Jonathan Ladd @jonathanmladd.com · 19/05/2026
Not enough news coverage of how the insurrectionist reparations fund is a clear violation of the 14th Amendment. We need to enforce the Constitution in its original meaning and plain text. You can't imagine away parts of the Constitution just because it is politically inconvenient.
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Matt Reece @mreece.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
Translations of the Odyssey should just use the word "polytropic"; that way, we know that Odysseus satisfies the Lane-Emden equation, and I would never have gotten there from "complicated."
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